Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Managing Comments.

Managing Comments

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 17, 2019)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


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 Reviewing toolbar. If you have quite a few comments in your worksheet, these tools can be a great help.

You can display the Reviewing toolbar by choosing Comments from the View menu or by choosing Toolbars from the View menu and then choose Reviewing from the list of available toolbars.

The buttons on the Reviewing toolbar 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, you will want to click on the Hide All Comments tool and then close the Reviewing toolbar.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2242) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) 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. ...

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