Comments for Documenting Your Worksheet

It may happen that you return to your worksheet days or months from now and discover to your dismay that you don't know why certain numbers or formulas are there. For that matter, someone else may inherit your worksheet and be mystified as to what the heck is going on. To take the mystery out of a worksheet, document it by entering comments here and there. A comment is a note that describes part of a worksheet. Each comment is connected to a cell. You can tell where a comment is because a small red triangle appears in the corner of cells that have been commented on. Move the pointer over one of these triangles and you see the pop-up box, a comment, and the name of the person who entered the comment. Click the Show All Comments button on the Review tab to see every comment in a worksheet.

Here's everything a mere mortal needs to know about comments:

Entering a comment:
Click the cell that deserves the comment, go to the Review tab, and click the New Comment button (or press Shift+F2). Enter your comment in the pop-up box. Click in a different cell when you're done entering your comment.

Reading a comment:
Move the pointer over the small red triangle and read the comment in the pop-up box.

Finding comments:
On the Review tab, click the Previous or Next button to go from comment to comment.

Editing a comment:
Select the cell with the comment, click the Edit Comment button on the Review tab and edit the comment in the popup box.

Deleting comments:
Click a cell with a comment and then click the Delete button on the Review tab or right-click the cell and choose Delete Comment. To delete several comments, select them by Ctrl+clicking and then click the Delete button.

Deleting all comments in a worksheet:
Select all comments and then click the Delete button on the Review tab. You can select all comments by clicking the Find & Select button on the Home tab, choosing Go To, and in the Go To dialog box, clicking the Special button and choosing Comments in the Go to Special dialog box.

If your name doesn't appear in the pop-up box after you enter a comment and you want it to appear there, click the Office button, choose Excel Options, select the Popular category in the Excel Options dialog box, and enter your name in the User Name text box.

You can print the comments in a worksheet. On the Page Layout tab, click the Page Setup group button, and on the Sheet tab of the Page Setup dialog box, open the Comments drop-down list and choose At End of Sheet or As Displayed on Sheet.