Adding Comments to a Microsoft Word Document Steve Miller April 12, 2008 English Department Technology Professional Development #2

Part I: Adding a Comment Manually

Step 1 Have students you their essays instead of turning in on paper. Make sure you have them send you the essay as a Word document attachment not PDF. Have students write their name and period on the subject line of the so that you will know who the is from.

Step 2 Open up an individual and save the attachment to your desktop, flash drive, or some other storage system. You might want to create folders for each period prior to saving any essays (right- click on mouse>new>folder>name folder). It’ll prevent having over 100 file icons on your desktop.

Step 3 Open up the word document for that student and begin reading.

Step 4 When you come across a place in which you want to add a comment do the following: –Insert>Comment Your screen should look like this

Step 5 Type in your comment

Step 6 To exit comments and continue reading, click anywhere else in the text of the essay. To add more comments, just repeat steps 1-6.

Part II: Adding Comments Using a Macro

A macro is like a program inside of another program. It helps you to automate repetitive tasks so that you only have to hit one or two keys to perform a more complicated task. Here’s how you do it.

Step 4 Instead of just adding the comment manually you first need to create the macro. Tools>Macro>Record New Macro.

Step 5 Name your macro. I would name it according to what comment you want to insert (i.e. spelling, capitalization, etc.) Click on either “Toolbars” to add an icon on the toolbar or click on “Keyboard” to add a shortcut key. Once you have named it and chosen “Toolbars” or “Keyboard”, hit “OK”.

Step 6 Name your shortcut. For example for the “singular not plural” comment you might choose ALT+S. Click "Assign" and then "Close". EVERYTHING YOU CLICK OR TYPE WILL BE RECORDED FROM THIS POINT ON.

Step 7 Follow Part I: Steps 4 and 5. Be very careful on what you type or click on.

Step 8 To end the recording – Tools>Macro>Stop Recording Macro. From this point on every time you enter that shortcut key it will insert that specific comment. For each new comment you want to automate you’ll have to repeat Part II again. It sounds like a lot of work, but once you do this, it’ll make the process much easier.

Others Uses of Comments? 1.Use comments when highlighting specific parts of an essay (i.e. attention-getter, thesis statement, topic sentences, concrete details, commentary, concluding sentences, etc.)

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