ADDING COMMENTS TO AN EXCEL WORKSHEET

Adding Comments to a Worksheet is useful if you do not want to display comments on your worksheet the worksheet is large and complex you share your worksheet with others the worksheet contains complex formulae which will be difficult to decipher later certain values on the worksheet reflect inconsistencies which require explanation.

Adding a comment to a cell Open the Excel file Retail Sales.xls. Click on the cell in which you want to add the comment (H7). On the Insert menu, click Comment and a box appears with the name of the user appearing at the top (in this instance ‘Administration’). This name can be deleted if necessary.

A small black arrow is pointing to a red triangle in the top right-hand corner of cell H7. This indicates that a comment is being inserted into that cell. Type the comment. “The large increase was due to a local bonus scheme.” Now click outside the box and the comment disappears from view. Position the cursor on cell H7 and the comment reappears.

Inserting Another Comment Click on cell C2 (Feb) and on the Insert menu, select Comment. Key-in the comment, “29 days this month”, then click outside the comment box.

NOTE When you sort items in a worksheet, the comments move to new positions according to how the data has been sorted. When working with Pivot Tables, if you pivot the table the comments do not move, they remain in the cell where they were entered.

Turning Off Comment Indicators You can choose not to show comment indicators on your worksheet. Click on Tools in the menu bar, then select Options. A dialogue box appears with a dot adjacent to Comment indicator only. This indicates that the comment indicator (red triangle) is currently showing on the worksheet.

Click here to select None, then click on OK. This clears the comment indicator on the Excel sheet. Position the cursor on cell H7. The comment and comment indicator are no longer in view. Click on Tools and open the Options dialogue box,then click on the Comment indicator only button to reverse the previous action. Click on OK.

Creating a list of cells containing comments Click on Tools once more and open the Options dialogue box, then click on the None button. Click on OK to reverse the previous action so that the red indicator triangles are no longer visible. Click on cell H7. Click on Edit in the menu bar. Select Go To and the dialogue box shown on the next slide appears.

Key-in the cell reference H7, then click on OK. Open the Go To dialogue box again. Notice that the cell reference $H$7 appears in the Go To box above. Key-in the cell reference C2 in the Reference box, then click on OK.

Open the Go To dialogue box once more and it Open the Go To dialogue box once more and it looks like this, showing a list of cells which have comments attached to them. Click on $C$2, then click on OK and cell C2 is selected in the Excel worksheet.

Editing Comments in a Worksheet If you want to change the text in a previously prepared comment, proceed as follows. Click on Tools in the menu bar, then select Options. Click on the Comment indicator only button, then click on OK to show the comment indicators in the Excel file. Click on cell H7, click on Insert in the menu bar, then select Edit Comment.

Editing Comments Continued Key-in the month July where shown below. Click outside the comment box.

Deleting Comments from the Worksheet To delete the comment attached to cell H7, proceed as follows. Click on cell H7. Press the right-hand mouse button and a drop- down menu appears. Select Delete Comment and the comment is deleted.