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: Counting Comments in a Worksheet.

Counting Comments in a Worksheet

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 13, 2018)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


2

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.

  4. Make sure the Comments radio button is selected.
  5. Click OK. Excel selects all the cells that contain comments.
  6. 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.

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 (6932) 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: 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 two more than 1?

2020-01-25 08:44:56

Fiaz Idris

There is a problem with the count using status bar. When the Cell is Empty but with comments, that cell is NOT counted.
So, you will receive less count than the actual number of comments in cases.
To avoid this problem, after Step 4, when all the cells are selected, Type: "aaa" (some random text), and press Ctrl+Enter. This will add text "aaa" to all the comment cells.

Now every comment cell has a value and the count of comments will now be correct in status bar. Hope this helps!


2018-10-13 11:17:06

Rick Rothstein

There is no need to include the Application.Volatile code line as inserting and deleting comments does not trigger any events that Excel monitors, so your CountComments formula will work like Excel's CELL function... it will not update until the worksheet is recalculated.

Also, you can eliminate the need for having to pass a cell reference to the function by making use of the Application.Caller object. The following function will work like the one you posted, but no argument should be passed to it.

Function CountComments() As Long
CountComments = Application.Caller.Parent.Comments.Count
End Function

And you would simply call it like this...

=CountComments()


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