Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Comments Use Tiny Font when Printed.

Comments Use Tiny Font when Printed

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 1, 2017)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Laura uses word to grade her students' essays. She loves the comment feature; it allows her to help them revise sentences or gives her space to explain something they've done wrong or right. With younger students, she tends to keep her comments short. With older students, she often needs more room. When the student or Laura prints the essay with these comments, the font is extremely small. If her students are going to read her comments, Laura has to make it as easy and accessible for them as possible. She can increase the size of the comment text on the screen, but printing always results in extremely small type. Laura wonders if there is a way to print out with comments using a larger font, at least comparable to the font she uses for the comments on the screen.

There are a couple of things at play here that figure into a complete answer. First of all, it is important to realize that there are two ways that comments can be printed in Word. First, starting with Word 2002 you can print comments in balloons, as they normally appear on the screen. Second, you can print comments on a separate page.

You control how comments are printed by using the controls in the Print dialog box. (Press Ctrl+P to display the Print dialog box.) The Print What drop-down list allows you to select a number of different options. Two of those options are germane to comments, however:

  • Document Showing Markup. This option prints your document with the comments shown in-place, using balloons. This is essentially how you see the comments if you are viewing your document in Print Layout view.
  • List of Markup. This option produces a comments list, on a separate piece of paper.

The method of printing you choose is important. If you choose to print the document showing the markup (using balloons), then Word uses a different style to control the printing of the text in the balloons than if you choose to print the list of markup. Here are the styles that apparently control the formatting of comments. (Not all of these styles are available in all versions of Word.)

  • Comment Reference. This style controls the formatting of any comment references within the main body of your text.
  • Comment Text. This style controls the formatting of the text used to print comments. When it comes to printing it only has bearing when you choose to print a list of markup.
  • Balloon Text. This style controls the formatting of the comments when they appear in balloons, whether displayed or printed.

Theoretically, it is possible to change how comments are formatted when printed by making changes to the above styles. (How you change styles is discussed in other WordTips.) I say "theoretically" because there may be other factors at play, as well. For instance, if you choose to print comments in balloons, and you use a font size that Word considers too large to display the balloon properly in relation to the main document, then it may "scale" the balloon to print it. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to get around this scaling without printing the comments on a separate markup list.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9350) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Comments Use Tiny Font when Printed.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Searching by Columns, by Default

Do you often want to search through a worksheet by column rather than by row? Excel defaults to searching by row, of ...

Discover More

Using a Week Number as One Criterion in a Formula

The SUMIFS function can be quite powerful in conditionally summing information based on criteria you specify. This tip ...

Discover More

Differing Column Widths when Pasting

When you move information from one table to another, you may be faced with the problem of making that information fit ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Adding Comments to Your Document

If you would like to add non-printing notes to your document, the Comments feature is one way of doing that. Here's how ...

Discover More

Searching for Comment Marks

Got a bunch of comments in your document? You can easily jump from one comment to the other by using the Object Browser, ...

Discover More

Printing Comments

After adding comments to a document you may want to print them later. Word provides a variety of ways you can print the ...

Discover More
Subscribe

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.

What is five minus 3?

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.

Videos
Subscribe

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

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.