Removing Comment Brackets for Printing

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 29, 2016)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Subscriber Jim Carroll, a Word 2002 user, recently described a process he uses for adding comments to a document and then removing them for printing. He uses the "balloon" feature, which displays comments as balloon text at the right side of a document. Prior to printing, he turns the balloons off (Tools | Options | Track Changes tab), but small red brackets appear around the commented text within the document. He wondered how to get rid of the red brackets.

To understand the answer to this question, you must understand the purpose of comment balloons in Word and how they are controlled. Balloons are simply an alternative way to display comments. Some people like balloons, and others don't. You can turn the balloons on and off at will, as described earlier in this tip. Whether the balloons are displayed or not, the comment markers--the small red brackets--are always displayed.

To turn off the comment markers so you can print a "clean" copy of your document, you should follow these steps:

Make sure the Reviewing toolbar is displayed.
Using the Display for Review drop-down list at the left side of the toolbar, choose Final. The comments no longer appear in the displayed document.
Choose Print from the File menu. Word displays the Print dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Print dialog box.

Using the Print What drop-down list, make sure Document (not Document Showing Markup) is selected.
Click on OK. Your document is printed.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1903) 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

Can Only Print to Default Printer

It is helpful to be able to print out worksheets when you need to share them with others. It is even more helpful if you ...

Discover More

Merging and Printing a Series of Documents

Do you need to merge and print a number of documents in a particular order? Perhaps the best approach is to record a ...

Discover More

Displaying the User Name in the Status Bar or Title Bar

Sometimes it can come in handy to know who the current computer user is, as far as Word is concerned. This tip presents ...

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 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Printing without Headings

The writer uses headline styles to create a story outline. He does not want to see the headlines when he prints the ...

Discover More

Printing Shortcut Key Assignments from a Macro

Need to know what shortcut keys are defined? You can use a single macro command line to print out the definitions.

Discover More

Fonts Unavailable in Word

If you have some fonts that don't show up as available in Word, their exclusion can be confusing. Here's a discussion of ...

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 one less than 9?

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.