by Ekaterina Bespalaya, updated on
In this article you'll find out how to add comments to Excel cells, show, hide and delete them. You'll also learn how to insert a picture in a comment and make your cell note more eye-catching by changing its font, shape and size.
Suppose you have received an Excel document from another person and want to leave your feedback, make corrections or ask questions about the data. You can easily do this by adding a comment to a particular cell in the worksheet. A comment is often the best way to attach additional information to a cell because it doesn't change the data itself.
This tool can also come in handy when you need to explain formulas to other users or describe a certain value. Instead of entering text description you can insert a picture into a comment.
If you want to know more about this Excel feature, go ahead and read this article!
First I should say that the ways of inserting text and picture notes are different. So let's begin with the easiest of two and add a text comment to a cell.
Note. To perform this task you can also use the Shift + F2 keyboard shortcut or right-click on the cell and choose the Insert Comment option from the menu list.
By default, every new comment is labelled with the Microsoft Office user name, but this may not be you. In this case you can delete the default name from the comment box and enter your own one. You can replace it with any other text as well.
Note. If you want your name to always appear in all your comments, follow the link to one of our previous blog posts and find out how to change the default author name in Excel.
The text will go, but the little red indicator will remain in the upper-right corner of the cell. It shows that the cell contains the comment. Just hover the pointer over the cell to read the note.
I've just mentioned above how to view a single comment in the worksheet, but at some point you may want to display all of them at once. Just navigate to the Comments section on the REVIEW tab and click on the Show All Comments option.
One click and all the comments in the current sheet are displayed on the screen. After reviewing the cell notes, you can hide them by clicking Show All Comments again.
If you have a lot of comments in the spreadsheet, showing all of them at a time can complicate your perception of the data. In this case you can cycle through the comments using the Next and Previous buttons on the REVIEW tab.
If you need a single comment to stay visible for a while, right-click on the cell with it and choose Show/Hide Comments from the menu. You can also find this option in the Comments section on the REVIEW tab.
To put the comment out of sight, right-click on the cell and select Hide Comment from the menu or click on the Show/Hide Comments option on the REVIEW tab.
The rectangular shape, pale yellow background, Tahoma 8 font... A standard comment in Excel looks rather boring and unattractive, doesn't it? Fortunately, with a little bit of imagination and skill, you can make it more eye-catching.
The font of an individual comment is very easy to change.
You will see the comment box selected with the flashing cursor inside it.
There are two more ways to select the comment. You can either go to the Comments section on the REVIEW tab and click on the Edit Comment option or press Shift + F2.
The Format Comment dialog window will appear on your screen. Here you can pick the font, font style or size that you like, add different effects to the comment text or change its color.
If you are sick and tired of changing the font size of each single comment, you can apply it to all cell notes at once by changing the settings in your Control Panel.
Note. This update will affect Excel comments, as well as tooltips in other programs.
If you want to use a different comment shape instead of the standard rectangle, first you need to add a special command to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).
You will see the Excel Options dialog window on your screen.
The Change Shape icon is added to the QAT in the top-left corner of the Excel window, but it is grayed out. To enable the icon, click on the comment border using the four-headed arrow.
When the option becomes available, open the Change Shape drop-down list and choose the shape you want.
After you've changed the comment shape it can happen that the text doesn't fit the comment box. Do the following to solve this problem:
Now when your comment has its individual style, hardly it will be ignored.
If you want the same comment in multiple cells of your worksheet, you can copy and paste it in other cells without changing their content.
You will get the Paste Special dialog box on the screen.
Note. You can skip steps 4 - 5 and use the Ctrl + Alt + V keyboard shortcut to display the Paste Special dialog.
As the result, only the comment will be pasted into all the selected cells. If any cell in the destination area already has a comment, it will be replaced with the one you paste.
If you no longer need a comment, just follow the steps below to get rid of it in a second:
You can also go to the REVIEW tab in the Ribbon and click on the Delete icon in the Comments section to clear the comments out of the selected cell or range.
As soon as you do that, the red indicator will disappear and the cell will no longer contain the note.
It's high time to find out how to insert a picture comment in Excel. It may be very helpful when you want other spreadsheet users to have the visual presentation of your data. You can add the pictures of products, company logos, diagrams, schemes or fragments of a map as comments in Excel.
This task will take you some time, but I am sure it will be no problem at all. First let's try to do it manually.
Note. In case the cell already contains a note, you need to make it visible. Right-click on the commented cell and choose the Show/Hide Comments option from the menu.
If you don't want any text in your picture comment, just delete it.
Note. It is important to right-click on the border not inside the comment box since the Format Comment dialog window will have different options in each case.
The image appears in the Picture field of the Fill Effects dialog. To keep the picture proportions, check the box next to Lock Picture Aspect Ratio.
If you want to speed up the process of adding a picture comment to a cell in your worksheet, use Quick Tools by Ablebits.
Quick Tools for Microsoft Excel is a set of 10 great utilities that can make your daily tasks quicker and easier. Besides adding a picture comment to a cell, these tools can help you with math calculations, filtering data, converting formulas and copying cell addresses.
Now let me show you how Quick Tools can help you insert a picture into a comment.
After the installation the new Ablebits Quick Tools tab appears in the Ribbon.
When you rest the pointer on the cell, you'll see the picture you've just inserted in the comment.
Quick Tools also allows you to change the comment shape. First you need to click on the comment border to enable the Change Shape button in the Comment section. Then just pick the shape you like from the Change Shape drop-down list.
Now your comment will definitely catch everyone's interest because it contains the necessary details and visual support.
I hope after reading this article you will have no problem with adding, changing, showing, hiding, copying and deleting text and picture comments in Excel workbooks. If you have, just leave me a comment here and I'll do my best to help you! :)
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