Insert A Comment In Word 2016

Inserting a comment in Word 2016 is a good way of providing feedback on a document, or at least a portion of it, without actually changing its content. Comments can be used to add notes and to offer suggestions, or to pose questions. They are attached to certain pieces of text within your document so you will first need to select your text, and then click the Review Tab > New Comment (in the Comments group).

Insert A Comment

You can select as large or small a portion of text as you require, so your selection may include a single word, or multiple paragraphs. After clicking New Comment, the selected text becomes highlighted and a comment box appears on the right in which you can add your comments. Each comment you make is saved with your User Name and the time the comment was added.

Interestingly, even if you have signed out of Microsoft Office, the comment box still shows your User Name, from last time you signed in.

Press the Esc key when you’ve finished typing the comment, or you can click in the document’s text.

After you have added your comments, they are immediately on display in the right margin. This is because when you add a comment, the Show Comments command is automatically activated. Equally, you can hide all comments and increase the available space for viewing your document by clicking Show Comments. It acts as a toggle for displaying/hiding comments.

Show Comments

Once you have added a comment, you can select it by clicking on it. When you do, the text you commented on is highlighted again.

In addition to text, you can add comments to other elements like images, charts and SmartArt etc. The same principle applies: select the item and then click on New Comment.

Changing a comment is easy: if you click to select the comment it becomes editable. You can then make your changes. As you’d expect, you can’t change someone else’s comment. You can only change your own. You can, however, reply to a comment left by someone else.

Replying To A Comment In Word

In some circumstances, you may want to reply to a comment added by a colleague. To do so, click on the comment and then click on the Reply link below. Another entry will appear for you to type your reply. Again, your reply is recorded with your User Name and the time it was added.

Your colleagues can also reply to your replies, and often a dialogue ensues, with each subsequent comment indented.

Other Comment Features

You can delete comments individually by selecting them and then clicking Delete in the Comments group (on the Review tab). You can also delete all comments in a document by clicking on the lower portion of that same Delete button > Delete All Comments in Document.

Delet All Comments

If you want to delete an individual comment but don’t want to jump to a different tab, you can right click on the comment and select Delete Comment.

When a discussion is finished, you can resolve a comment to close it. If you change your mind later, you can click on Reopen. If you change your mind again… you get the picture.