Word 2003 Markup problem for Comments

[Charlie Johnson]

We're trying to convert over 200 Word 97 templates to Word 2003. In
Word 97, we used the comments feature to display pop-up help text.
Worked great. In Word 2003, to display the comments, Markup is
selected. But, it also displays the comment numbers behind the
highlighted text.

Is there anyway to keep the highlighted text but lose the numbering?
For example, yellow-highlighted text has "C1" following it, for
example. If Markup is turned off, users can't see the highlighted text
to view the pop-up help windows.

I'm new to Word 2003 so maybe I'm approaching this wrong but it was
very simple in Word 97.

Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Charlie

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Charlie,

FWIW, Word 97 also labels comments with initials and numbers. The
difference is that, in that version, these are formatted as "hidden
text". It's always a bit risky to find a different use for a feature
than that for which it was designed. Somewhere down the line, when
"improvements" are being made, it may no longer work as one was
accustomed

Word 2003 doesn't format this information as "hidden" by default. But
all you need to do is change the style definition to include hidden font
formatting.

- click the "AA" button at the very left of the Formatting toolbar
- At the bottom of the Styles and Formatting task pane, choose
"Custom" from the drop down list
- Click the button "Styles"
- Find "Comment Reference" in the list
- Click "Modify"
- Click "Format" and choose "Font"
- activate the "Hidden" checkbox. OK.
- click "Add to template" if you want this in new documents. OK.
close.

We're trying to convert over 200 Word 97 templates to Word 2003. In
Word 97, we used the comments feature to display pop-up help text.
Worked great. In Word 2003, to display the comments, Markup is
selected. But, it also displays the comment numbers behind the
highlighted text.

Is there anyway to keep the highlighted text but lose the numbering?
For example, yellow-highlighted text has "C1" following it, for
example. If Markup is turned off, users can't see the highlighted text
to view the pop-up help windows.

I'm new to Word 2003 so maybe I'm approaching this wrong but it was
very simple in Word 97.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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