MS Excel: Copy / Paste Only a Cell Comment
When reviewing the contents of a worksheet, do you find that you’ve got the same comment to make over and over again? (The least of which being “Where the heck did that come from?”)
I know that when I go through and start getting into the details, I will often find that I’ve got to add the same comment to multiple cells to avoid forgetting any when the issues are resolved later.
Repeating my work over and over again is an exercise in frustration, as far as I’m concerned, so I’m thinking that it sure would be nice if we could just copy / paste those comments just like we do everything else…
Good thought – and Microsoft must have agreed, because the ability to copy / paste comments only is already there, you just have to know where to find the “trick” to the pasting.
You start this process the same as any other like it – select the cell containing the comment and copy it.
Next select the cell(s) to which the comment should be applied.
Wait! Don’t hit paste so quickly!
Instead we need the Paste Special feature. You can access this with a right-click and choose Paste Special from the menu or it can also be accessed from the Home tab of the Ribbon, via the bottom half of the Paste button.
When the Paste Special dialog box is open you need to select the Comments choice.
Click OK.
Voila! Cell contents unchanged but the comment was added without you needing to re-do all that work over and over and over again.
~ April
What I would like to know is how to copy a comment from excel and paste it into an email document (Lotus Notes in this case) – it doesn’t work with paste special to another application – at least Lotus Notes
Is there a keyboard shortcut for pasting only the comment, rather than having to do all that clicking?
I wish to add an icon in Excel self-customized ribbon to speed up the copy and paste of comment in one cell to another, but cannot find this icon.
Ps help. Thx.
This was super helpful, thank you so much!
Is there any way to convert the comments into cell content or into a word document that’s suitable for printing? I’m working on an interactive spreadsheet for employee evaluations, and all the comments are keys to the employee standards. Thanks!