How to search, print and unhide comments in Excel

Adding a comment to a cell in Microsoft Excel is very useful feature. You can always locate a comment by red arrow appearing at the top right corner of the cell.

List below are the steps to search, print and unhide comments in Excel 2013 and Excel 2010.

Search comment in Excel 2013 and Excel 2010

But searching and finding inserted comments in a excel worksheet with number of rows spanning across more than a page will be a huge task. This can be simplified using the Search Comments option available as part of the Find feature. To find comments in Excel 2010 and Excel 2013, navigate to Editing section and click the drop down arrow available next to Find & Select option.

This would display the following menu options as part of the Find & Select feature.

Click Comments from the list of available menus. This would locate the comment  in your Excel Worksheet. And if you have more than one comment, then press tab to navigate to each comment.

Print cell comment in Excel 2013 and Excel 2010

Excel by default does not print the comments and you can enable this feature using the Page Setup option.

Let us added the following comment for a cell in Excel Worksheet.

Now when you navigate to Print Preview option (File –> Print), Excel will not show the added comments. Click the Page Setup option available under Print Preview Settings page.

In the Page Setup Window, click the Sheet tab and navigate to Print section. For comments drop down, choose “At end of sheet” or “As displayed on sheet” for Comments. Let us go with “At end of sheet”, click Ok button to confirm and save the changes.

Now the print preview screen will display the comments at the end of sheet and the same will get printed while printing the worksheet.

Unhide comment in Excel 2013 and Excel 2010

If you are not able see the comments in worksheet then you can try to use the unhide option available as part of the Excel Advanced Options.

1. Click the File menu and then the Options link.
2. In the Excel Option window, navigate to Advanced Options.
3. Scroll down to display section and For cells with comments radio option select your preferred choice i.e either Indicators only, and comments on hover or Comments and indicators.

Click Ok to save and confirm the changes.

Also See: How to Insert, Delete, Customize Comments in Excel 2010