
Tips.Net > ExcelTips Home > Tools > Comments > Comments Don't Appear when Cell is Pointed To
Summary: By default, comments associated with a particular cell should appear on-screen when you move the mouse pointer over that cell. If they don’t, then there may be a setting amiss or a more esoteric problem. (This tip works with Microsoft Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, Excel 2003, and Excel 2007.)
Virginia noted that when she places her mouse pointer over a cell that has a comment, the comment doesn't appear, even though it used to. She checked the Comment settings in Word, and they are set to allow viewing of comments. Virginia noted that the problem first appeared after she created a macro to display comments and subsequently deleted the macro.
Assuming that your Comments settings really are set properly, there are only two possibilities that could be occurring. First, your workbook could be corrupted in some way. This is easy enough to figure out—just check to see if the problem occurs in all workbooks or in just this one. If the problem is in only one workbook, then chances are good that it is due to some sort of corruption. In this case you'll need to transfer your information from the old workbook to the new one, as described in other issues of ExcelTips.
The second possibility is that the boxes displayed by your macro really weren't comments. There are several objects which can display like comments and, if it was done with code, it would suggest something other than comments since comments do not need code to display them.
If they are comments they will have a red triangle in the upper-right corner of the cell. You might try to add a new comment to see if it works OK. If it does, then the problem is not with the comments. In that case, you'll need to somehow recover your macro to again display the information you seek.
Tip #3257 applies to Microsoft Excel versions: 97 2000 2002 2003 2007
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