Editing Comments

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Sometimes I am running into trouble with some of the comments I add to a cell. Trying to read these later on and hovering my pointer over the red triangle, the output provides only some line into the next cell and I am unable to open or read the comment field.

If the whole box is shown, I know how to enlarge the box or if I wanted to delete a comment, I could do that too. But using the edit option or just wishing to read, I find that if the box is somehow compressed, I cannot enlarge it. I tried to widen the cells to no avail. Show all comments is fine for those that also work with pointer hovering but nothing shows for those like the example below.

I am sure I am missing a simple step.

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Hi Beethoven

Using Cell comments in heading rows can be tricky if you have ‘freeze-panes’ on your heading rows.
You will be able to see those ‘heading-row’ comments ‘fully’ only when you have scrolled to the top of the data rows beneath any ‘freeze-panes’ heading-rows.

The way I deal with this is to use ‘Data Validation’ to show a description-message for any heading-row cells, rather than using ‘Cell Comments’ for heading-row cells. I usually include a small fixed text box which says “Click any heading cell for description’.

So, use Data-validation for the heading cell:
for ‘Settings’, allow ‘any value’ for the cell, and just put the description text in the ‘Input message:’ box. I usually leave the ‘Title’ blank for the Data Validation.

Now, whenever a User clicks on any heading cell,  a message box will be displayed, effectively showing a ‘comment’ via the Data-Validation message for that cell.

Hope this helps, but reply back for any further help.

zeddy

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beethoven

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Zeddy,

thanks for that. While I was still not able to see the original comments for all cells, the alternative with Data Validation works very well for me.  Of course you need to know that some comment may be hidden there but since these comments are mainly for me and always in the same cells, I won’t miss the little arrow. In fact thinking about it I could put a “useless” comment with red marker in there, never intending to open this just to provide a visual clue for the data validation comment.

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Hi Beethoven

Thanks for getting back to us. Still curious about you not seeing your original comments – if you have ‘freeze-panes’ on, can you try temporarily turning freeze-panes off and then seeing if your comments are displayed?

Meanwhile, glad you found the Data Validation method of some use to deal with the issue.

There are lots of other tricks to deal with showing messages. For example, with VBA you could use the MouseMove method to detect which cells you are ‘floating over’ with the cursor, and then have different message boxes shown for particular cell addresses.

zeddy

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Zeddy,

not sure why my comments are causing these issues but even unfreezing does not allow me to see all of them. I am not bothered now as you provided a very good alternative and I am sure there are heaps of other features you could teach me though many of them probably would not find much usage based on my needs.

The attached sample file shows part of the top of the spreadsheet and you can see that the comments for cells B1, D1 and H1 are working fine but C1 and F1 only generate a downward bar with no easy way for me to show the content.  I am sure it’s there but somehow hidden possibly happening when I changed the width of the columsn? I played around with it but still cannot figure it out

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zeddy

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Hi Beethoven

Thanks for attaching your sample file.

Mystery even deeper then!

I see ALL the comments for ALL the cells, including C1 and F1 when the posted file is opened for quick viewing in Microsoft Edge (see screenshot)

But when I download the file and open it either in Excel2016 or Excel2010 your reported issue shows

So, what I did was to set the column widths wider, used the option to display all comments, and then, one-by-by, re-size each comment to appear in the same column beneath the corresponding heading cell

The ‘single line’ you were seeing was in fact a very very thin comment!

see attached file

zeddy

 

 

 

 

 

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beethoven

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Excellent – I had to use edit comment as an extra step to duplicate this but was then able to replicate this.  Also, I would not have thought to use Edge to look at the sheet first – two more things to file away in my knowledge box.  Thank you.

For my future usage though I will use your data validation suggestion.

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