Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, 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: Counting Comments in a Worksheet.

Counting Comments in a Worksheet

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 24, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021

3

Sanjib would like to get a count of all the comments in a worksheet. Unfortunately, Excel doesn't include a function that allows you to access this information. You can, however, get the value manually by using this process:

  1. Press F5. Excel displays the Go To dialog box.
  2. Click Special. Excel displays the Go To Special dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Go To Special dialog box.

  3. Make sure the Comments radio button is selected.
  4. Click OK. Excel selects all the cells that contain comments.
  5. Right-click the status bar and choose Count. The status bar now displays the number of selected cells—the number of comments in the worksheet. (This only works accurately if there is something in each cell that has a comment associated with it.)

If you want to get the number of comments and place it into a cell, then you need to use a macro to create a user-defined function.

Function CountComments(rCell As Range)
    Application.Volatile
    CountComments = rCell.Parent.Comments.Count
End Function

This function grabs the value of the Count property for the Comments collection. It is then returned by the function to the worksheet. To use it in your worksheet, enter a formula such as the following:

=CountComments(A1)

The cell address you use in the formula is unimportant; it should simply reference a cell on the worksheet for which you want the count.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12363) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Counting Comments in a Worksheet.

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. ...

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What is 6 - 0?

2024-06-18 12:10:34

J. Woolley

@Carol Sartorius
The old Comments option button in the Go To Special dialog is now labeled Notes (legacy unthreaded comments). To count the new threaded Comments, see my previous comment below.

2024-06-17 18:06:29

Carol Sartorius

The comments box has been removed in excel and there appears no way to count those now. :(

2022-09-24 13:03:11

J. Woolley

The Tip's CountComments function considers legacy unthreaded comments (Notes). For new threaded comments, use this:
CountComments = rCell.Parent.CommentsThreaded.Count
My Excel Toolbox includes the following dynamic array function:
=ListComments([AllSheets],[Threaded],[SkipHeader])
This function returns one row for each comment with the following columns: Worksheet, Cell, Author, Comment (text). It works with threaded and unthreaded comments.
In older versions of Excel you can use ListComments with the SpillArray function described in UseSpillArray.pdf. You can also get count values for the active worksheet with these formulas:
=VBAResult("ActiveSheet.Comments.Count")
=VBAResult("ActiveSheet.CommentsThreaded.Count")
See https://sites.google.com/view/MyExcelToolbox/

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