Batch removal of Comments

[Art Kleiner]

I'm using Word 2004 version 11.2 on Mac OS X v. 10.4.3.

In previous versions you could search and replace for comments and thus
remove all the comments at once.

Now you have to literally go down comment by comment and remove them
separately.

This is way too tedious, particularly because my documents may have
dozens or hundreds of comments.

How do I remove them in a group?

Many thanks, Art Kleiner

 

[Art Kleiner]

John - No, that's not the problem. I've been doing THAT for years -
searching for Comment Mark and replacing it with nothing.

The problem is, now, that when I search for "Comment Mark" it doesn't
find anything. There are no hits. Even though there are lots of
comments.

Perhaps the problem is that I'm searching in Page Layout view and
Comment Marks only exist in Normal view. I haven't tried that. But that
seems downright... counter-intuitive.

Or is there some other reason that my comments aren't registering as
"Comment Marks"?


ArtK

 

[Shawn Larson [MSFT]]

John - No, that's not the problem. I've been doing THAT for years -
searching for Comment Mark and replacing it with nothing.

The problem is, now, that when I search for "Comment Mark" it doesn't
find anything. There are no hits. Even though there are lots of
comments.

Perhaps the problem is that I'm searching in Page Layout view and
Comment Marks only exist in Normal view. I haven't tried that. But that
seems downright... counter-intuitive.

Or is there some other reason that my comments aren't registering as
"Comment Marks"?


ArtK

Art,

Would this work in your situation?
- Open doc with comments you want to delete/remove
- View, Toolbars, Reviewing
- Click the down arrow to the right of the "Reject Change/Delete Comment"
button - it has a red 'X' on the face
- Click "Delete All Comments in Document"

Ideally, the "Comment Mark" in the Find and Replace dialog should not be
listed.

HTH,
Shawn Larson
Mac Word Test

 

[CyberTaz]

"Find" still seems to work for comment marks - to a certain extent -
although "Replace" doesn't. There is one missing piece to the puzzle...

If you go to Find and use the ^a character, then click the check box for
'Highlight all items found in:' Comments will be listed in the adjacent list
(as long as the doc contains at least one Comment). When you click Find All,
the Reviewing Pane opens revealing the list of all comments in the doc.
Unfortunately, if you use Replace, the 'Highlight...' option doesn't appear
and, as the OP reported, no Comment Marks will be found.

Even at that, Find is really nothing more than a round-about way to open the
Reviewing Pane and doesn't satisfy the OP's request, but may be useful for
someone, somewhere, sometime. Most likely, Shawn's response will fit the
bill much better.

Regards |:>)

 

[Art Kleiner]

Shawn's suggestion is indeed a solution.

Now that I know that, I was able to find "Delete All Comments in
Document" in the Customize menu list.

In my opinion, of course, it's outrageous that 1) the Comment mark no
longer can be searched-and-replaced and yet 2) still (as Shawn says)
exists in the searchable menu and 3) (as CyberTax points out) can be
searched in Find but not Replace.

How many people, like myself, will need this feature sometime but
never, ever find their way to this discussion group - or to the
solution?