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Step 1 - What are Comments ?

Comments are short bits of text that can be used to explain calculations, assumptions or to provide reminders.

A comment is a bit of descriptive text that enables you to document your cells and formulas.

You can only attach one comment per cell although you can make the comments as long as you want.

Adding comments to your worksheet cells has several uses:

1) Useful for tracking progress and for tracing your footsteps when handling complex formulas.

2) Useful for reminding yourself how certain areas of a worksheet work.

3) Useful for communicating with other people when you are sharing the same worksheet.

Step 2 - Displaying Comments

To display a comment, use the mouse to hover over the particular cell.

You can set the show/hide of individual comments by right clicking and selecting show/hide comment.

Step 3 - Displaying ALL Comments

If you want to add a comment to a cell but do not see the comment when you hover over with the mouse, check your (Tools > Options)(View tab, Comments).

The default is to display the comment indicator only. The comment is automatically displayed when the cursor passes over the cell.

None - Displays no comments and no indicators.

Comment indicator only - A small red triangle appears in the top right corner of all cells containing comments.

Comment & indicator - Displays the comment indicator and the comment all the time.

Step 4 - Adding Comments

To add a comment to a cell press (Insert > Comment).

You can also use the Insert Comment button on either the Reviewing toolbar or the Formula Auditing toolbar.

 New Comment - Inserts a comment at the insertion point.

Alternatively you can use the "Insert Comment" command on the Cell shortcut menu or the shortcut key (Shift + F2).

The Cell shortcut menu is displayed by pressing the right mouse button (as opposed to the left) when over a cell.

When you add a comment, your name will automatically appear in bold at the top. This text is actually the User Name from the (Tools > Options)(General tab).

The text you enter for your username will always appear at the top of your comment followed by a colon.

Type your message into the yellow box that appears. Click another cell once you have finished.

You can resize the comment box by dragging one of the handles.

Step 5 - Selecting Comments

By default a small red triangle appears in the top right corner of a cell when that cell contains a comment.

When you move the cursor over a cell displaying this indicator the comment will be displayed automatically.

To jump between all the cells that contain comments in a worksheet, first display all the comments, select (Edit > GoTo) (Special, Comments) and then use the Tab key to jump between all the cells.

Step 6 - Editing Comments

To edit a cell comment just select that particular cell and select (Insert > Edit Comment).

Alternatively you can also use the Cell shortcut menu or the shortcut key (Shift + F2).

SS - shortcut menu

Select text inside the comment

Step 7 - Formatting Comments

To apply bold and other formatting effects to your comments select the text and press the right mouse button.

Select Format Comment from the shortcut menu

SS

If you want to remove the User Name from appearing you can remove it from (Tools > Options)(General tab, "User name").

Before you remove it completely be aware that this User Name is used in other places as well though.

You can format your comments so they look different from your colleagues.

Use the highlight tool on the Formatting toolbar to change the background colour of the comment.

Use the font tools to change the font attributes.

Step 8 - Printing Comments

It is possible to print out all the comments on a worksheet. The page setup dialog box is worksheet specific.

Select (File > Page Setup)(Sheet tab).

At end of sheet - Prints the comments on an additional page.

As displayed on sheet - Prints the comments only if they are currently displayed on the worksheet.

Step 9 - Removing Comments

You can remove a comment by selecting the hatched border of the comment and pressing Delete.

Alternatively you can use the Cell shortcut menu by pressing the right mouse button when over the cell.

Step 10 - Things to Remember

You can use the (Edit > Find / Replace) to locate text within comments.

(Shift + F2) inserts or edits a cell comment.

You can quickly display all the comments in a workbook by selecting (Tools > Options)(View tab, "Comment & indicator")

It is possible to format your cell comments to a different colour by clicking on the edge of the textbox and selecting (Format > Comment).