Cannot add a comment w/o review pane opening

[draftjen]

When I try to add a comment (something I need to do frequently), the review
pane pops up at the bottom, but no comment box appears in the margin. Did I
somehow disable the Comment function? I close the review pane, but it comes
back every time I try to paste a comment within a doc. What am I doing wrong?
THANKS!

 

[Lene Fredborg]

The comments box in the margin only appears if you have balloons set to
"Always" or "Only for comments/formatting" in Tools > Options > Track Changes
tab.

Below I have included some observations I have made, incl. a macro that can
be used to insert comments and, at the same time, keep the Reviewing Pane
closed:

If you have comment balloons turned on (Tools > Options > Track Changes
tab), the Reviewing Pane seems to open automatically only if you are in
Normal view or Outline view. If balloons are not turned on, the Reviewing
Pane seems to open in any view.

The command executed by Insert > Comments is named "InsertAnnotation". You
could save the macro below, e.g. in your Normal.dot, and it will run instead
of the built-in command. The macro inserts a comment. If this causes an extra
pane to be opened, that pane is closed by the macro (see the notes below).

Sub InsertAnnotation()
Dim n As Long
n = ActiveWindow.Panes.Count
'Add comment
Selection.Comments.Add Range:=Selection.Range
'Close the Reviewing Pane or the Comments Pane
'if it was opened
With ActiveWindow
'If a new pane was opened, close it
If .Panes.Count = n + 1 Then
.Panes(n + 1).Close
End If
End With
End Sub

----------------
Notes:
With the macro installed, I have observed the following:
If comment balloons is turned _on_: When the comment is inserted, the
Reviewing Pane opens if you are in Normal view or Outline view (this was
expected) - the pane is closed again by the macro. But was also happens, is
that the _Comments Pane_ for some reason is opened if you are in any other
view when inserting the comment (I cannot explain why) - that pane is closed
again by the macro.

If comment balloons is turned _off:_ The Reviewing Pane opens in any view
and is closed again by the macro.

In case of e.g. the footnote/endnote pane, it would be possible use the
following line of code to check whether the selection is in that pane:

Selection.Information(wdInFootnoteEndnotePane)

For some reason, a corresponding constant "wdInReviewingPane", does not
exist. However, "wdInCommentPane" exists.

That is why the macro is created so that it just checks whether an extra
pane was opened and, if that is the case, closes that pane again.

For help on installing macros, see:
http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word

 

[draftjen]

Thank you VERY much. I don't know how the Option got changed to "Never", but
fixing to "Always" fixed the problem, so I didn't try the macro. I
appreciated the advice on the View, too, because that was another issue that
was a problem. I really appreciate your assistance, Lene!

 

[Josh]

The macro works great in Word 2007, I just can't figure out how to assign a
shortcut key for the macro to run. When I record a new macro, I am given an
option to assign a shortcut key, but I'm not sure how to add the shortcut key
when editing the macro. Thanks for your help.