How do I control the format of footnotes?

In LO Version: 6.0.7.3, I’m encountering two problems with footnotes: a) randomly, empty line spaces appear between consecutive footnotes, and b) again seemingly randomly, although the footnote superscript in the body of the text is consistent with that text, the footnote number at the bottom of the page is bigger.

I should be most grateful for any expert tips on correcting these anomalies.

Without an ODF type sample file we can guessing only.

Pasting text that has been directly formatted could produce this result. Select the footnote (probably now has style from paragraph it was pasted from) and apply “footnote” paragraph style. Ctrl+M if needed,but unlikely.

I usually paste as unformatted text just in case of issues like this.

Thank you, Al, for a totally effective answer !! AND I understood it. Brilliant - you solved both questions.