Automatically Placing Text in a Comment

Grant has a cell in a worksheet that when someone starts typing in the cell, he would like whatever they type to end up in a comment attached to the cell. The cell itself should remain blank, but the comment should contain whatever was typed.

The only way to accomplish this task is through the use of a macro. Using the event handler capabilities of Excel, you can create a macro that is triggered whenever a cell is changed. If the changed cell happens to be the cell that you want the comment associated with, then you can transfer the cell contents to the comment and remove them from the cell itself. The following short macro will do that:

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
    Dim rCell As Range
    Dim sTemp As String

    Set rCell = Range("B4")
    If Not Intersect(Target, rCell) Is Nothing Then
        sTemp = rCell.Value
        rCell.ClearComments
        If Len(sTemp) > 0 Then
            Application.EnableEvents = False
            On Error Resume Next
            rCell.AddComment
            rCell.Comment.Text Text:=sTemp
            On Error GoTo 0
            rCell.ClearContents
            Application.EnableEvents = True
        End If
    End If
End Sub

Note that since this is an event handler, it needs to be added to the code module for the worksheet you want affected. In this case, the move-to-comment code is triggered only when a change is made in cell B4; this address can be changed in the code, if desired.

It should also be noted that this macro is only triggered once the user finishes entering something into cell B4. It isn't triggered as the user starts to type. So, actual data entry still occurs in cell B4, not in the comment itself. Further, if someone types something into cell B4, then any existing comment is lost because the macro deletes it before moving the cell contents into the comment.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (13511) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016.