Pop-up Comments

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 29, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

If you work with Comments in your documents, you may really like this tip. Did you know that Word can automatically display a comment when you position the mouse over the comment marker in your document? For instance, if there is a comment marker such as [ALW1] in your document, and you position the mouse pointer over that marker, a small pop-up window appears and displays the contents of the comment.

If your version of Word does not do this, simply follow these steps to turn on the feature:

Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
Make sure the View tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The View tab of the Options dialog box

Make sure the ScreenTips check box is selected.
Click on OK.

Why Word refers to the pop-up comments as "ScreenTips" is beyond me. Normally, ScreenTips are a different feature, as described in the following tip.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (644) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Problem with Add-on Macros

Add-ons can extend the capabilities of Word, sometimes significantly. These extensions are due to macros contained in the ...

Discover More

Canceling a Menu

Want to cancel whatever menu command you started to use in Excel? The normal method is by pressing Esc, but this is not ...

Discover More

Aligning Paragraphs in a Macro

Using a macro to format your document (or portions of your document) is not all that uncommon. If you want your macro to ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Copying, Moving, and Deleting Comments

Comments are often added to documents to aid in their development. You can use regular editing techniques to copy, move, ...

Discover More

Viewing Comments From a Specific Reviewer

If you have multiple editors (or authors) working on the same document, and each of them is adding comments, you may want ...

Discover More

Formatting Comments

Need to change the appearance of the text in your comments? It's easy to do using techniques you are already familiar with.

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is eight more than 2?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.