I just tried this in my copy of Word 97 and it worked for me:
Go to the end of your document, and click on Insert | Footnote | Options
| Number format: <roman> | OK | OK. This will insert a new footnote
(which you can delete) and change the numbering of all preceding
footnotes to the same style.
Does this work on your computer?
> I have a book chapter Word 97 document in which all the
> superscript numbers indicating footnotes are in roman
> rather than arabic form. Is there a way to change all
> these numbers from roman to arabic in one operation, or do
> I have to change them manually one by one?