Question about Word 2019 and footnotes

[Myword]

I have a dilemma and no one knows what to do.

When I type a footnote or end note, a short horizontal line automatically
appears either just below the text or further down the page. It cannot be
deleted, regardless of my efforts. It is a barrier so that the rest of the page
is blank because it blocks all writing. Very frustrating. It is supposed to indicate
where the footnote would be.

I tried twice to remove the borders on Word (from home button) and that did not work.
I don't think it is a "border"--lines are only a few inches. I have tried
every button on my new Dell Windows 10. Same problem on Word 2007.
Before I send in my article to journal, I want to get rid of the annoying lines!

Microsoft Support did not solve this on the phone--over an hour.
She just removed all the footnote numbers..   this board is my last try.

[fleabite]

In case you are still looking for a solution, perhaps this might help:

https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/word-change-the-gap-between-a-footnote-and-the-separator-line/

Also, I remember at one point finding a useful solution to having an extra horizontal line before endnotes on each page. It's a symptom of a corrupted file. The solution is to turn on the paragraph marks. Then copy the whole document, including the final paragraph mark before the notes, and paste it into a new document. Save your new document, and the extra lines before the note should be gone. I'm not sure of the precise nature of your problem, but maybe this strategy would help even if it's not exactly the same error as what I experienced.

[bibliothecula]

Try copying it all into LibreOffice and see what happens. Then you can save it as a .docx.

[Myword]

I tried to fix this with fleabite's link---the lines are gone but I still cannot move the text onto the next page. The cut and paste jumbles the paragraphs, makes it worse. The backspace button should move sentences and paragraphs from one page to fill the empty space on the preceding page--but does not!  It is like there's an invisible line preventing shifting the text to another page. I am error prone anyway and every attempt takes me a long time. This article is a nuisance! The new Word is so annoying.
. I think I will send my article to the journal as is. Would you?

[fleabite]

I would send it as is. It's hard to diagnose this sort of thing remotely, but I am sure the editor will know how to fix it after (I hope for you) acceptance.