Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. 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: Managing Comments.

Managing Comments

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 7, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016


1

Besides simply adding and viewing comments one at a time, Excel includes some tools that allow you to easily manage your comments. The tools used to manage comments are found on the Review tab of the ribbon. If you have quite a few comments in your worksheet, these tools can be a great help.

The buttons on the Review tab of the ribbon make it very easy to work with the comments. For instance, you can add a comment to a cell by clicking your mouse on the New Comment tool.

Perhaps the most helpful tools are the Previous Comment and Next Comment tools. These allow you to work strictly with comments and jump from one to the other. As you click your mouse on one of these tools, Excel highlights a comment. The New Comment tool changes to Edit Comment, and you can use the Hide Comment tool to dismiss the comment and the Delete Comment tool to permanently remove it.

When you are done working with comments, just click somewhere else in your document and change to a different ribbon tab as necessary.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11912) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Managing Comments.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Deleting Paragraph Borders

Got a document that has a border around some paragraphs? Here's how you can get rid of the border in the fastest way ...

Discover More

Selecting Tabs in Dialog Boxes

Dialog boxes normally present information in a series of tabs. If you want to move from tab to tab without taking your ...

Discover More

Changing Text in Text Boxes on a Chart

Macros allow you to make changes to virtually anything you can see in Excel. This tip examines how to make changes (even ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! John Walkenbach's name is synonymous with excellence in deciphering complex technical topics. With this comprehensive guide, "Mr. Spreadsheet" shows how to maximize your Excel experience using professional spreadsheet application development tips from his own personal bookshelf. Check out Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Adjusting Comment Printouts

Need to print out comments, but in a way that you control what is included in the printout? Here's a way you can extract ...

Discover More

Editing a Comment Close to Its Cell

Have you ever chosen to edit a comment, only to find that the comment is quite a ways from the cell with which it is ...

Discover More

Printing Formatted Comments

When you print your worksheet, you may want Excel to include your comments or notes as they appear on the screen. Here's ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is five more than 8?

2018-08-11 11:19:49

J. Woolley

You might be interested in these macros for managing comments:
http://www.contextures.com/excelcommentmacros.html


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.