Excel Comments and Notes: Shortcuts, Printing, and Customization

What Is the Difference Between Notes and Comments in Excel?

Before Microsoft 365, Excel only had one annotation feature called “Comments.” When Microsoft introduced threaded discussions in 2019, they renamed the original feature to “Notes” and gave the name “Comments” to the new threaded version.

This causes confusion because the same word means different things depending on your Excel version.

Rule of thumb: Use Notes when you need a personal reminder or a static label that does not require a response. Use Comments when you need to start a conversation, tag a colleague, or track a discussion thread to resolution.

A single cell can have either a Note or a Comment, but not both at the same time. You can convert between the two by right-clicking the cell and selecting “Convert to Comment” or “Convert to Note.”

How to Use Threaded Comments for Team Collaboration

Threaded Comments turn a cell into a mini discussion thread. They are available in Microsoft 365, Excel 2021, and Excel for the web.

Insert a threaded Comment: Right-click a cell and select New Comment, or press Ctrl+Alt+M. Type your message and press Ctrl+Enter to post.

@mention a collaborator: Type @ followed by their name inside the comment box. Excel shows a list of people with access to the workbook. The mentioned person receives an email notification with a direct link to the cell. If you check “Assign this task,” it also appears in their Microsoft To Do list.

Reply to a Comment: Hover over the cell, click in the Reply box, type your response, and press Ctrl+Enter. All replies appear in chronological order below the original post.

Resolve a thread: When the discussion is complete, click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of the first comment and select Resolve Thread. The cell indicator changes from purple to gray. You can reopen a resolved thread later if needed.

Delete a thread: Click the three-dot menu and select Delete Thread. This removes the entire conversation permanently and cannot be undone.

View all Comments: Go to Review > Show Comments to open the Comments pane. You can filter by open or resolved threads using the filter icon.

Important: Anyone with edit access to the workbook can edit any comment, regardless of who wrote it. If you need to protect comments, use the Protect Sheet feature.

What Are the Keyboard Shortcuts for Notes and Comments?

Worksheet cells with embedded comments are easy to recognize by their red triangle in the upper right of a cell.

To insert a comment using a keyboard shortcut, select the appropriate cell and press Shift+F2.

An easy way to remember this keyboard shortcut; the F2 key edits the cells content, whereas Shift+F2 edits the cells comment.

If you would rather insert a comment via the ribbon, click Review (tab) -> Comments (group) -> New Comment.

When dealing with a workbook that contains many comments, perhaps spread across great distances, the Next and Previous buttons in the Comments group allow for speedy navigation from one comment to another.

You can also edit a comment by pressing Edit Comment (or right-clicking on a cell and selecting Edit Comment) as well a delete a comment by selecting Delete (or right-clicking on a cell and selecting Delete Comment.)

How to Show or Hide All Notes and Comments at Once

If you have many comments on a sheet, and you don’t wish to select each cell individually to read all the comments, you can force the display of all comments by selecting Review (tab) -> Comments (group) -> Show Comments.  This button acts as a toggle , so clicking the button  again will hide all the sheet comments.

If you want to display the comment for a single cell, select the cell and press the Show/Hide Comment button on the ribbon.

How to Print Notes and Comments in Excel

There are two methods for printing the comments in a worksheet.

Print Notes as Displayed on the Sheet

If you wish to print the comment next to the cell containing the comment, select the Page Layout tab and click on any of the Dialog Box Launcher buttons in the lower right of any supported button group.  This will launch the Page Setup dialog box.

Since the ribbon has limited screen real estate, these buttons take you to the full feature lists in the applicable category.

Select the Sheet tab then select the dropdown list for the Comments feature.  Click the option labeled “As displayed on sheet (legacy)”.  Keep in mind, the comments will only be printed if they are rendered visible on the sheet by one of the previously discussed methods.

Print Notes at the End of the Sheet

If we return to the Page Setup dialog box, click the dropdown for the Comments feature and select “At end of sheet”.

This will generate an extra sheet at the end of your printout listing all the comments, comment authors and cell locations.

How to Delete All Notes or Comments at Once

Delete all Notes from a sheet:

1. Press Ctrl+A to select all cells.
2. Go to Home > Editing > Clear > Clear Notes (or Clear Comments in older versions).

Delete all threaded Comments from a sheet:

1. Press Ctrl+A to select all cells.
2. Go to Home > Editing > Clear > Clear Comments.

In Microsoft 365, the Clear menu shows separate options for “Clear Notes” and “Clear Comments” since they are different features. In Excel 2019 and earlier, there is only “Clear Comments” (which clears what are now called Notes).

How to Copy and Paste Notes to Other Cells

If you have a comment in a cell and wish to apply the same comment to another or several other cells, perform the following steps:

1. Select the cell with the original comment
2. Click Copy on the Home tab or use the CTRL+C keyboard shortcut
3. Select the destination cell(s)
4. On the Home tab, select the lower part of the Paste button and select Paste Special
5. In the Paste Special dialog box, select Comments and click OK

How to Add a Custom Background Image to a Note

Sadly, most users of comments don’t drift beyond the default appearance of a comment.

For the more adventurous of us, we can right-click on a comment border and select Format Comment or use the CTRL+1 keyboard shortcut.

Aside from the font, font size, font color customizations, we can also select the Colors and Lines tab of the Format Comment dialog box to access many creative cosmetic features.

An interesting way to get visually creative comments is to add a background image to the comment.  We will achieve this by selecting and capturing as a file an icon from the icon library.  We will then apply it as a background for our comment box.

Unfortunately, Excel will allow us to perform all but one of the steps necessary to achieve this result.  Because of this Excel limitation, we will utilize PowerPoint to create and capture the background image.

The steps to achieve this are as follows:

1. Launch PowerPoint and create a new blank presentation with a blank slide.
2. Insert an icon by selecting Insert (tab) -> Illustrations (group) -> Icons.
3. From the icon library, select the icon(s) that suit your needs. For this tutorial, we will be using the “tablet” icon from the “Technology and electronics” category and the “checklist” icon from the “Business” category.  Select the icons and click Insert.
4. Move the icons to allow a fair amount of distance between them.
5. Resize the icons. Making them larger will allow for easier modifications.
6. The icons may have unnecessary whitespace surrounding the icon. Select the icon and click Graphic Tools – Format (tab) -> Size (group) -> Crop and remove the extra whitespace from the icons.
7. From the Graphic Styles button group, customize the fill color, outline color, and any other cosmetic customizations you wish. Keep in mind, the image will be reduced in size, so the simpler you maintain the look of the icon, the better.
8. Right-click the icon and select Save as Picture. Select the PNG format and save the image to a location and with a filename of your choosing.
9. Return to Excel, select the border edge of a comment and press CTRL-1.
10. On the Colors and Lines tab, in the Fill category, select the Color dropdown and click Fill Effects.
11. Select the Picture tab and click Select Picture.
12. Browse to your newly created picture’s folder and select the image.
13. Check the box titled Lock Picture Aspect Ratio.
14. In the Line category, set the line color to No Line.
15. Click OK to accept all settings.
16. The image may be slightly cropped. Using the resize handles, adjust the comment border until you can thee the image in its entirety.
17. To prevent future resize operations from re-cropping the image, press CTRL-1 to reopen the Format Comment dialog box. Select the Size tab and place a check in the Lock Aspect Ratio option and click OK.
18. Because the text is slightly obscured by the thick border of the image, press CTRL-1 to return to the Format Comment dialog box. On the Margins tab, set the margins for all for sides to 25”.

Observe the final version of the custom comment.

If you wish to apply this comment box style to other cells without having to perform all the previous steps, use the “Select-Copy-Paste Comments” technique discussed earlier.

How to Use Icons Instead of Text in Notes

Remember the checkbox icon we saved earlier?  We can use that image in place of an actual text-based comment to indicate an established meaning.

Repeating the previous steps, but for the checklist image, add the image to a cell’s comment but remove all the text.

We could convey to our team, “If you see the checkbox comment, add that item to the to-do list.”

These are a few ways to create comments that will help your spreadsheet stand out and get the attention they deserve.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the shortcut to insert a Note in Excel?

Press Shift+F2 to insert or edit a Note in the selected cell. To insert a threaded Comment instead, press Ctrl+Alt+M.

Why did Microsoft rename Comments to Notes?

When Microsoft introduced threaded discussions in 2019, they needed a separate name for the new feature. They gave the name “Comments” to the threaded version and renamed the original static annotations to “Notes.” Both features still exist side by side.

Can a cell have both a Note and a Comment?

No. A cell can have either a Note or a threaded Comment, but not both. You can convert between the two by right-clicking the cell and selecting “Convert to Comment” or “Convert to Note.”

How do I print Notes in Excel?

Go to Page Layout > click the dialog box launcher > Sheet tab > Comments dropdown. Select “As displayed on sheet (legacy)” to print Notes where they appear, or “At end of sheet” to print a summary list of all Notes with their cell locations.

Can I customize the appearance of threaded Comments?

No. Threaded Comments have a fixed appearance that cannot be changed. Only Notes (legacy annotations) support custom colors, fonts, shapes, and background images. If you need visual customization, use Notes instead.

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Leila Gharani

Founder of XelPlus and ten-time Microsoft MVP. Leila helps over 500,000 professionals master Excel, Power BI, and data automation through practical, real-world training.

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