Why isn't Word putting in 2 columns footnotes that can doubtless fit on 1 line?

Solution 1:

I have done some tests on Word 2019, and it seems that the option of "Footnote layout" is now dead and non-functional.

Word now always seems to use only the section layout for the footnotes layout, so in effect "Match section layout" is the only active option and everything else is ignored.

This apparently used to work in Word 2013 and 2016, as I did find this answer which contained this example:

This seems like a recent bug that in effect disabled footnotes layout, making it the same as section layout. Your only option is to file a bug-report to Microsoft using the Feedback Hub, then wait for a fix.

Another option might be to downgrade to Word 2013 or 2016, in which this option might still work.

To have 2-column footnotes is only possible with 2-column text. As an example, here is how 1-column footnote on 2-column text looks like on Word 2019. You can see that the footnotes column layout is totally ignored: