Comments in Excel

Comments

In Excel comments works like remark, note or hint. Consider you made a value change out of 1 Lac cells and still you want to draw attention from the reader to understand why value has been changed and of course when and by whom? the comment is a solution which sleeps in hidden mode inside a cell and upon hover the mouse pointer it pops up the tip written under comment as shown below:

Steps to insert a comment:

Select appropriate cell
Navigate to Review tab
Click New Comment under Comments group or right click on the selected cell and choose Insert Comment command from the popup as shown below in figure 1.1
A tip box will be opened where you can write your comment

Edit comment:

Hover mouse over the cell containing comment or Click Show All Comments on the Review ribbon under Comments group
Select Edit Comment from Review tab under comments group or right click on the cell and choose Edit Comment commend as shown in the figure 1.2
Cursor goes inside comment tip box in editing mode where you can make necessary changes.

Delete Comment

Select cell containing comment and choose Delete from Review tab under Comments group or right click on the cell and select Delete Comment command from the popup

Navigate: there are few more commands which I will explain one by one on the tool bar:

Previous: Shows previous comment of current selection
Next: Shows next comment of current selection
Show/Hide Comment: toggles comment visibility on entire sheet
Show All Comments: shows all comments on the sheet

Lets put code to achieve automation: In this article we are using Excel Addin technique which is built on VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office) technology hence following prerequisites are recommended:

Visual Studio 2015 or above having Microsoft Office for Developer Tool installed
Create Excel Addin in C# or VB code style (Visual Studio Tools for Office)
Excel 2010 or above
Create a ribbon designer and put button

C# code example

private void btnCommentOperation_Click(object sender, RibbonControlEventArgs e)
{
	//Retain user selection
	excel.Range oRange = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection;

	//Add comment
	oRange.AddComment("This is VBAOVERALL comment");

	//Take current comment reference
	excel.Comment oComment = oRange.Comment;

	//toggle visibility
	if (oComment.Visible == false)
		oComment.Visible = true;
	else
		oComment.Visible = false;

	//display comment indicator
	excel.Application oApplication=Globals.ThisAddIn.Application;
	oApplication.DisplayCommentIndicator = excel.XlCommentDisplayMode.xlCommentAndIndicator;

	//Navigate comments
	excel.Worksheet oWorksheet = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveSheet;

	//All comments in a sheet
	excel.Comments oComments = oWorksheet.Comments;
	
	//Next
	oComments.Item(1).Next();

	//Delete comment
	oComment.Delete();
}

VB.Net code example

Private Sub btnComments_Click(sender As Object, e As RibbonControlEventArgs) Handles btnComments.Click
	'Retain user selection
	Dim oRange as excel.Range
	oRange = Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.Selection

	'Add comment
	oRange.AddComment("This is VBAOVERALL comment")

	'Take current comment reference
	dim oComment as excel.Comment
	oComment = oRange.Comment

	'toggle visibility
	If oComment.Visible=False Then
		oComment.Visible=True
	Else
		oComment.Visible=False
	End If

	'display comment indicator
	Dim oApplication as excel.Application
	oApplication =Globals.ThisAddIn.Application
	oApplication.DisplayCommentIndicator = excel.XlCommentDisplayMode.xlCommentAndIndicator
End Sub

VBA code example

Sub Comments()
    'Retains seleciton
    Dim oRange As Range
    Set oRange = Selection
    
    'Insert comment
    oRange.AddComment Text:="VBAOVERALL:" & Chr(10) & "This is a comment"
    
    'Retain comment object
    Dim oComment As Comment
    Set oComment = oRange.Comment
    
    'Check and toggle visibility
    If oComment.Visible = False Then
        oComment.Visible = True
    Else
        oComment.Visible = False
    End If
    
    'Show indicators
    Application.DisplayCommentIndicator = xlCommentAndIndicator
End Sub

VBA Copy/Paste Formatting

Public Sub CopyPasteCommentsWithFormatting()
    'Declare range object
    Dim oRange As Range
    
    'declare target object
    Dim oTargetObject As Range
    'bind target
    Set oTargetObject = Range("E1")
    
    'bind selection
    Set oRange = Selection
    
    'Copy range
    oRange.Copy
    
    'Paste comments with formatting
    oTargetObject.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteComments, Operation:=xlNone, _
        SkipBlanks:=False, Transpose:=False
    
    'Memory cleanup
    Set oRange = Nothing
    Set oTargetObject = Nothing
End Sub

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