

If you referred to comments in this way (perhaps in conjunction with the number), then there could be no confusion on the part of the author as to which comment you reference.Fields in footnotes, endnotes, text boxes and shapesĪs is true for headers and footers, footnotes, endnotes, text boxes and shapes you create using the tools in Insert tab > Illustrations group > Shapes reside in their own layers in a Word document, separated from the main body.Īs explained above, fields in headers and footers are updated more automatically than other fields. You can see the time for a comment by simply hovering the mouse pointer over the comment. Word keeps track of who enters a comment (thus the initials) as well as the date and time at which a comment was entered. Of course, you may simply want to rethink how you are referring to your comments. The only way to make the numbers non-dynamic is to type them manually and then not change them later. This approach has the same problem as the earlier approach: the numbers are dynamic, they are not static. Your existing comments (and any you add in the future) should now be numbered.


Word displays the Modify Style dialog box. In the task pane, hover the mouse pointer over the Comment Text style, click the down-arrow to the right of the style name, and choose Modify Style.Click the Options link at the bottom of the task pane and change the options so that All Styles are displayed.(Display the Home tab of the ribbon and click the small icon at the bottom right of the Styles group.) You could easily modify this style so that it is automatically numbered. This text uses, appropriately enough, the built-in Comment Text style. In other words, if you have 17 comments in a document and you insert a new one after comment 5, then the current comment 5 (ALW5) becomes 6 (ALW6) and so on, so that you have 18 sequentially numbered comments in a document.Īnother approach is to modify the style used to display the comment text. One thing you need to be aware of is that as you insert comments, Word renumbers them so they are always sequential. Make sure the Initials box has something in it.The general options of the Word Options dialog box. (It may already be selected, by default, in the dialog box.) (See Figure 2.)įigure 2. Click Popular (Word 2007) or General (Word 2010 and Word 2013) at the left side of the dialog box.In Word 2010 or Word 2013 display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.) (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. If your comments don't show up this way, it could be because you don't have Word configured properly. Comments are automatically numbered in Word. For instance, if I insert comments, then they show up in the comment balloons with my intials (ALW) followed by numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.). That is, they should be numbered as long as you have Word configured to add the initials of the commenter to each comment. When entering comments they should be numbered by default. She needs a way to number comments that appear in comment balloons so that they can be referenced to the author and to others working on the project. She turns on Track Changes and does her work so that the author can see what was done. Reynolds is a book editor, and she works with manuscripts in Word.
