I’m a big Excel user and it always amazes me how few people add comments to their Excel spreadsheets! Adding and using comments in Excel is a great way to explain formulas, cells, and other data in the spreadsheet itself, thereby saving you time on the phone with colleagues! It is very easy to add comments to cells in Excel, and I will explain how you can do it in Excel XP / 2003, Excel 2007, Excel 2010, and Excel 2013.
Comments are basically notes that can be inserted into any cell in Excel. This is useful for reminders, notes for others, and for creating cross-references to other books. Note that newer versions of Office have a Show Ink option in the Comments toolbar and this is only useful for Tablet PCs. This feature basically allows you to write your comment by hand instead of typing it. However, on desktops and laptops, it is only useful for viewing handwritten annotations created on a tablet.
In addition, there are many other things you can do with comments after adding them to the worksheet, such as formatting, reshaping, resizing, etc. Scroll to the bottom of the post for these tips.
Add comments to an Excel 2013 cell
Excel 2013 is slightly different from 2010, but generally pretty much the same. To add a comment, click the Browse tab and click New Comment when you select the cell you want.
Now, just enter your comment, and when you leave that cell, you will see a small red triangle in the top right corner of the cell, indicating that there is a comment in the cell.
Add comments to an Excel 2010 cell
In Excel 2010, adding a comment is very simple and just like it was in 2013. Just click on the Browse tab and you will see all the commenting tools. Click the cell you want to add a comment to, and then click New Comment.
A small dialog box will appear where you can start entering text. You will also notice a small red triangle in the upper right corner of the cell, which indicates that there is a comment in the cell.
You can quickly view all comments on a sheet by clicking the Show All Comments button. This is useful if the sheet contains a bunch of comments. You can also click “Previous” and “Next” to view all comments one by one.
Add comments to an Excel 2007 cell
The procedure for Excel 2007 is the same as above. The first thing you need to do is click on the cell where you want to insert a comment. Click the Review tab in the ribbon panel to view the comment editing tools.
In the Comments group, click New Comment. A comment text box appears in the Excel spreadsheet where you can enter a new comment.
Enter your comment and click outside the text box when you’re done. You will notice a small red arrow in the upper right corner of a cell indicating that there is a comment in that cell. When you click on a cell, a comment appears automatically.
Add comments to an Excel XP / 2003 cell
In Excel 2003 and XP, you have a few more options for inserting comments into a cell since there is no ribbon. You can use the menu at the top, the mouse context menu, or the view toolbar.
Add comments using the menu bar
Add comments using the menu bar
First you need to click the cell where you want to insert the comment. Then click on the “Insert” menu option and select “Comment”.
As in 2007, a text box will appear next to the cell where you can enter your comment. In addition, a red triangle appears in the upper right corner of the cell.
Add comments using the mouse context menu
Add comments using the mouse context menu
Another simple yet nifty way to insert a comment into an Excel cell is to simply right-click the cell and select Insert Comment. This actually works in both Excel 2007 and Excel 2003.
Add Comments Using the Review Toolbar
Add comments using the review toolbar
Finally, you can use the Review toolbar in Excel to add comments to cells. To open the Review toolbar, go to View, Toolbars and select Review.
The first icon on the left is the New Comment button. Click on it and a new comment box will appear in the currently selected cell.
Resize comment
Now let’s talk about a few things you can do with comments after adding them. First, let’s just resize the comment. To do this, click and drag one of the handles at the corners or sides of the comment box.
Comment Format
By default, there is no formatting in a comment, but what if you want to change the font or increase the size of the text? To format a comment, first click in the cell and then click Edit Comment. Then right-click anywhere in the comment and select Format Comment.
Now you can change the font family, font style, font size, font color, and font effects. Now you can make your comments as ugly or beautiful as you like.
Change the shape of the comment
By default, the comment box is a rectangle, but you can change the shape of the comment. It would be nice if they added this option to the Comments section of the Overview tab, but for some reason it’s not there. Instead, you need to add a form button to the Quick Access Toolbar.
To do this, go to the “File” tab and then click “Options”.
Now you need to first click on the Quick Access Toolbar on the left. At the top, you will see a drop-down menu “Select commands from”; Go ahead and select All Commands from the list. Scroll down until you see Modify Shape, click on it and then click the Add >> button.
To change the form of a comment, click a cell and first click Edit Comment. Then click the new Edit Shape button on the Quick Access Toolbar and you will be presented with a range of shapes from which you can choose.
Copy comments to different cells
If you want to copy a comment from one cell to another, that’s pretty easy too. Just select a cell and press CTRL + C to copy the content. Then go to another cell, right-click and choose Paste Special.
Select Comments from the list and only comments will be inserted into the new cell. Everything else that is currently in the cell will remain the same.
Change Windows user to your own name
You may have noticed in the screenshots above that some of the comments start with “Windows user” and this is because the copy of Office is registered to that name by default. You can change this by going to File, clicking Options and then General.
You can leave this field blank if you want nothing to be displayed in the comment, or change it to any text you like. By default, it will appear at the top of all comments.
Remove the hold handle from cells
Finally, what if you want to hide those little red triangles at the top of the cell blocks, even if the comment exists? Well that’s easy too. Select File, Options, and then Advanced.
Scroll down to “Show” and you will see the section “For cells with comments, show:” and here you can choose one of three options: no comments or indicators, only indicators and comments on hover, or comments and indicators.
That’s all you can do with comments in Excel, so hopefully you’ll look like an Excel pro in your office. If you have any questions, please leave a comment. Enjoy
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