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Funky Comments

19th April 2005, 03:12 am by Rob van Gelder

If you’re keen to add some snaz to your Cell Comments then read on!

Cell Comments are just Shapes underneath and you can treat them that way!

Ensure you have the Drawing Toolbar visible. From Excel’s menu: View > Toolbars > tick Drawing.

Add a comment to a cell.
While editing the comment, you’ll notice there is a thick striped border around the shape. While you’re typing comment text, you’ve actually got the Textbox selected, not the Shape itself. So you need to select the Shape.

Click the border or simply hit the Tab key. Notice how the thick striped border changes to a dotted pattern.

Now that you’ve got the Shape selected, you can change many properties of the appearance.
eg. From the Drawing toolbar: Draw > Change Autoshape > Stars and Banners > 16 point Star.

Everything you need to alter the appearance of the comment is available from the Drawing toolbar - Shadows, 3D, Colour, etc…

Category: Formatting Cells  |  Comment (RSS)  |  Trackback

11 Comments

  1. andy:

    thanks,
    fantastic.

    before this I knew only how to embed pictures in comments.

    thanks again,
    cheers.

    19 April 2005, 4:42 am

  2. Nomad:

    Can’t seem to get this to work in Excel XP. Is this feature unique to 2003 version? … though it is not entirely inconceivable that I’m just flubbing the directions.

    19 April 2005, 9:51 am

  3. Rob van Gelder:

    It works under Excel XP.

    I was not able to make the shape 3D though - perhaps 3D is 2003 only?

    19 April 2005, 2:34 pm

  4. Andy Pope:

    3d works, for me, in xl2k.

    19 April 2005, 3:38 pm

  5. Joop:

    Nice,

    works for me even in xl97 sr-2.

    Joop

    19 April 2005, 4:41 pm

  6. Rob van Gelder:

    Thanks Andy

    On second try I discovered some shapes allow 3D, some don’t.

    19 April 2005, 5:05 pm

  7. Harald Staff:

    What’s next ? Blinking cells ? ;-)

    20 April 2005, 1:38 am

  8. Tom Ogilvy:

    Its also documented on Debra Dalgleish’s site
    for reference:

    http://www.contextures.com/xlcomments02.html#Shape

    –
    Regards,
    Tom Ogilvy

    20 April 2005, 9:57 pm

  9. Yogendra:

    This is COOL

    20 April 2005, 11:41 pm

  10. Wendy!:

    I love pleasant tips like these….

    22 April 2005, 9:12 am

  11. gusmack:

    Excel never ceases to amaze. . . neither does the daily dose. . .
    Keep up the good work!

    25 April 2005, 7:23 am

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