Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Comments Don't Appear when Cell is Pointed To.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 28, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
Virginia noted that when she places her mouse pointer over a cell that has a comment, the comment doesn't appear, even though it used to. She checked the Comment settings in Excel, and they are set to allow viewing of comments. Virginia noted that the problem first appeared after she created a macro to display comments and subsequently deleted the macro.
Assuming that your Comments settings really are set properly, there are only two possibilities that could be occurring. First, your workbook could be corrupted in some way. This is easy enough to figure out—just check to see if the problem occurs in all workbooks or in just this one. If the problem is in only one workbook, then chances are good that it is due to some sort of corruption. In this case you'll need to transfer your information from the old workbook to the new one, as described in other issues of ExcelTips.
The second possibility is that the boxes displayed by your macro really weren't comments. There are several objects which can display like comments and, if it was done with code, it would suggest something other than comments since comments do not need code to display them.
If they are comments they will have a red triangle in the upper-right corner of the cell. You might try to add a new comment to see if it works OK. If it does, then the problem is not with the comments. In that case, you'll need to somehow recover your macro to again display the information you seek.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9606) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Comments Don't Appear when Cell is Pointed To.
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2018-05-01 12:49:41
Jude Hashim
In some cases (especially in case of Excel for Mac) this happens when Excel had been open for too long.
accumulating errors and memory gabs.
the best way to solve this is by Quitting Excel and refresh the memory or even restart you Mac.
in most of the cases this is the easiest solution.
2017-01-11 03:41:14
Daniel Rold
I'm trying to use the Offset function to show some cell information in one sheet from another sheet.
However the comments won't show on the new sheet.
Is there anyway to get the comments to show?
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here:
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