how to change comment marker

[Carl Witthoft]

Question: is there any way to change the size or color or intensity of
the marks which indicate a comment has been attached at that point in
the document?
I'm using Word2004, and in Normal View (I hate balloons) all you can see
is two very faint red parentheses at the comment point. If there's a
hack to, say hilight the location (as in Word2000 for WIndows, at
least), I'd sure like to use it.

thanks

Carl

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Sorry, not that I know of. You can try experimenting with the colors in
Preferences, maybe a different color will be more visible?

I used to hate the balloons, but I hated the new reviewing pane more,
and started switching to Page Layout for commenting (after running some
macros to reset view, change the balloon font, etc).

WinWord 2002 or 2003 switched from highlight to brackets, but I think
WinWord 2007 switched back to the highlight, so maybe there's hope
MacWord 2008 will too.

 

[CyberTaz]

Yeah - I think MS got so many complaints about the obvious markup previously
used that they went overboard in the "unobtrusive" direction - those skinny
parens are almost invisible no matter what color they may be. Of course you
could always zoom to 300% 8>}

It's extra effort, but as a more realistic workaround don't forget about the
Highlight tool (Formatting Toolbar & Formatting Palette). Unfortunately I
couldn't get the two to cooperate as a part of a macro operation, but
perhaps someone else has some ideas.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[JE McGimpsey]

It's extra effort, but as a more realistic workaround don't forget about the
Highlight tool (Formatting Toolbar & Formatting Palette). Unfortunately I
couldn't get the two to cooperate as a part of a macro operation, but
perhaps someone else has some ideas.

I use this fairly frequently. It's not very robust, but I rarely use
highlighting for anything else...

Public Sub ToggleHighlightComments()
Dim cm As Comment

For Each cm In ActiveDocument.Comments
With cm.Scope
If .Start = .End Then
If .Start > 0 Then .Start = .Start - 1
.End = .End + 2
End If
If .HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow Then
.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
Else
.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
End If
End With
Next cm
End Sub

 

[Carl Witthoft]

Thanks, JE. I'll try that out. Since I never ever EVER use
highlighting, I don't have to worry about that confusion .

 

[Clive Huggan]

Carl,

Another alternative is to include commenting narrative in the text using a
distinctive style. It's just as quick, and results in less complexity in
the document's electronic structure, hence less chance of corruption. If
this is of interest, see page 127 of some notes on the way I use Word for
the Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a free
download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
============

 

[Carl Witthoft]

Clive,
In fact that is what *I* do when I'm editing documents. I use (shame
on me) c -style delimiters for my comments, and wrote a minimacro that
finds these comment strings and bold-reds them. I far prefer that to
embedded comments, but wish me luck educating the commoners in my
company :-(

Carl,

Another alternative is to include commenting narrative in the text using a
distinctive style. It's just as quick, and results in less complexity in
the document's electronic structure, hence less chance of corruption. If
this is of interest, see page 127 of some notes on the way I use Word for
the Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a free
download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
============

Yeah - I think MS got so many complaints about the obvious markup previously
used that they went overboard in the "unobtrusive" direction - those skinny
parens are almost invisible no matter what color they may be. Of course you
could always zoom to 300% 8>}

It's extra effort, but as a more realistic workaround don't forget about the
Highlight tool (Formatting Toolbar & Formatting Palette). Unfortunately I
couldn't get the two to cooperate as a part of a macro operation, but
perhaps someone else has some ideas.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac