Excel Comments vs Notes: Which One to Use
By Mark Fulton · 2026-10-08 · 11 min read
Most advice on this topic is written as if "comment" meant one thing. In current Excel it means two, and the old one changed its name.
Use a note when the explanation belongs to the number and the reader should see it: where a figure came from, why it is an estimate, what a cell assumes. Use a comment when you are talking to the people building or reviewing the file: a question, a reply, a request to check something. Notes are the lasting annotation. Comments are a conversation you resolve and delete before the file goes out. If the explanation matters to everyone who reads the report, skip both and put it in a visible notes column, because that is the only option that never depends on someone hovering, printing a special way or opening a side pane.
The table further down gives a verdict for five common annotation jobs.
Why did Excel's comments become notes?
Excel used to have one cell annotation: a yellow box that popped up when you hovered over a red triangle. Everyone called it a comment. Then Microsoft added a second, conversation-style feature and gave it the name "comments". The original feature became "notes".
Microsoft's own support page on the difference between threaded comments and notes puts it plainly: notes were formerly called comments in earlier versions of Excel, and they don't have a Reply box. Comments are threaded, and when people reply you see several comments connected together, a conversation inside the workbook.
That rename is why so much of what you find online contradicts itself. A tutorial from 2015 that says "insert a comment" means what is now a note. A tutorial from last year that says "insert a comment" means a threaded one. Two people can follow different guides and describe the same file in opposite terms.
The practical fix is to name the thing by what it looks like:
- Yellow box on hover, red triangle in the corner of the cell: a note.
- White card with a Reply box, listed in a Comments pane: a comment.
If someone tells you "I left you a comment", ask which one before you go looking.
What is each one for?
The mechanical differences, from Microsoft's documentation:
| Comment (threaded) | Note | |
|---|---|---|
| Reply box | Yes | No |
| Background | White | Yellow |
| Text and image formatting | Not currently supported | Supported |
| Resizable | No | Yes |
| Where you read them | A dedicated Comments pane | Scattered across the cells |
| How you add one | Right-click, New Comment (post with Ctrl+Enter) | Right-click, New Note (or Shift+F2) |
| @mentions | Yes, to address a person | No |
| Can be marked resolved | Yes | No |
Microsoft's guide to inserting comments and notes in Excel covers the steps: right-click a cell for New Comment or New Note, mention someone with @ to address a comment to them, and mark a finished thread as Resolved so nothing more can be added unless it is reopened. You can only edit your own comments.
Read that table as a statement of intent. A note is a static label that sits on a cell. A comment is a process: someone asks, someone answers, someone closes it. The two are built for different lifetimes, and that is the whole decision.
Comments have a lifetime. They exist while the file is being made. Once the question is answered and the thread is resolved, the comment has done its job and should go.
Notes have no lifetime. A note that says "Estimate, see supplier quote of 3 March" is as true next month as today. It stays with the cell.
Which one belongs on which job?
Here are the five annotation jobs that come up in a report, with a verdict for each.
| Job | Note | Comment | Notes column |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explain a figure ("includes the one-off refund") | Good if the reader hovers | Wrong tool | Best for a report others will read |
| Flag an estimate | Good, stays with the cell | Wrong tool | Best if the estimate affects a decision |
| Ask a reviewer ("is this the final number?") | Wrong tool | Best, it has replies and @mentions | No |
| Record a source ("export from the billing system, run on the 1st") | Good | Wrong tool | Good if the source is part of the story |
| Leave an instruction ("do not overwrite, formula in AE") | Good, hover warns the next editor | Possible, but clear it later | No |
A few things fall out of that table.
A question to a colleague is never a note. A note cannot be answered. The reply ends up in an email, and the thread lives somewhere other than the cell that prompted it. That is the case comments were built for.
Anything the reader must not miss should not be hidden behind a hover. A hover is easy to miss, and it depends on the reader having a cursor and opening the file in a full spreadsheet app. If the caveat changes how the number should be read, it needs to be on the page.
Instructions to the next editor are the best use of a note. "Do not paste values here, this column feeds the dashboard" is the kind of thing that saves a file, and it should live on the cell for as long as the cell does.
Which ones print or show in a PDF?
This is the part people get wrong, and the answer is different for each type.
Microsoft's page on printing comments and notes in Excel says that in Excel for Microsoft 365 you can't print threaded comments as they are displayed on a worksheet. They can be printed at the end of the sheet. Notes can be printed either way: at the end of the sheet, or "as displayed on sheet", which is labelled as a legacy option and prints each note at its position on the page.
The setting lives in Page Setup. On Windows, open the Page Layout tab, open the Page Setup dialog, choose the Sheet tab, and pick an option under Comments. For notes you want printed in place, the notes also have to be set to display on the sheet first, through the Review tab or the right-click menu.
What that means in practice:
- A threaded comment will never appear next to its cell on paper. At best it prints as a list at the end of the sheet. If you want the reader to see it in context, it is the wrong tool.
- A note can print in place. Check the preview for a note sitting on top of neighbouring cells. For a client report, the end-of-sheet option keeps the page itself clean.
- Print preview is the check. Whatever setting you choose, look at the preview, and if you send a PDF, open the PDF and look at it. Do not assume it matches what you saw on screen.
Printing a report is its own job, and our guide to printing an Excel sheet on one page covers the scaling side of it.
What happens to them in Google Sheets?
If the file will be opened in Google Sheets, assume the two features behave differently there, and test with your own file before you rely on one.
What Google documents is Sheets comments. In its help article on comments, action items and emoji reactions, Google describes adding a comment on a sheet, assigning it to a person by adding their email with @ or +, and closing a discussion by choosing Resolve. That is the same conversation-with-an-owner model as an Excel threaded comment.
How a particular file round-trips between Excel and Sheets, including whether a note stays a note, depends on the versions and the route you use to move the file. The only dependable way to know is to open a copy on the other side. For anything going to a client, that testing is a poor use of time, which is the strongest argument for the next section.
When is a visible notes column better than either?
When the reader has to see it. Most report annotations are in this group, and they are the ones people reach for a comment to handle.
A notes column (or a short block of notes under the table) has four advantages over both comments and notes:
- It prints. There are no print settings to remember and no PDF surprises.
- It survives every route. Email preview, a phone, Google Sheets, a CSV export, a screenshot pasted into a deck.
- It can be read in one pass. A reader scanning down a column sees every caveat. With notes, they hover cell by cell and miss most of them.
- It is honest. Someone who sees the caveat on the page cannot say they were not told.
The cost is space, so keep entries short: one clause, a source, a date. "Estimate: supplier quote, 3 March" is enough. Put the column at the right edge of the table, give it a plain header such as Notes, and leave it unformatted so it reads as commentary and not data.
Our post on building a client report spreadsheet shows where a notes column sits in a full layout, and how to present a spreadsheet to executives covers why a short line on the page beats an explanation delivered in a meeting.
A reasonable rule: if deleting the annotation would change how a reader interprets a number, it goes on the page. If it would only change how a colleague edits the file, a note is fine.
How do you clear review comments before sending?
Treat this as a step in sending, not an afterthought. A file that goes out with an old review thread in it ("is this number right??" "no, Dave is fixing it") is a very common way to embarrass yourself.
A sequence that works:
- Open the Comments pane and read through every thread. In Microsoft's documentation, the Comments button on the ribbon opens a pane listing the comments in the workbook, and the pane lets you move on to the next sheet.
- Resolve what is finished. Microsoft describes Resolved as closing a thread so nothing more can be added unless it is reopened. Resolving closes the conversation, so it is not the same as deleting it. Delete the thread as well.
- Delete the threads. Right-click the cell and choose Delete Comment. Microsoft's page describes deletion one cell at a time, and it names this action for threaded comments and Delete Note for notes. If your version offers a faster bulk option on the Review tab, use it, then check the result.
- Decide about each note. Keep the notes that explain a figure. Delete the ones that were instructions to yourself ("fix after Friday").
- Check what the reader will see. Hover the indicators that are left, and scan for any you did not mean to keep. In Excel you can also choose how indicators display under File, Options, Advanced, Display, which Microsoft's guide describes as hiding indicators, showing them on hover, or showing indicators and the text.
- Save a copy under a new name. If the cleaned version has the reviewer history stripped out, keep the original with the comments in it.
If you only do one thing, do step 5. The most common leak is not a thread, it is a leftover note with the draft thinking in it.
What should the file look like when it goes out?
Annotations are one item on a longer pre-send list. The clean messy spreadsheet checklist is the full version, and it is worth running after the comments are gone.
Once your annotations are in order, the sheet needs to look finished. SuperSheet's formatter takes your file, shows you a plan, and builds a clean copy with the title block, a frozen header row and number formats set per column. If you want the full set of formatting decisions behind that, start with how to make an Excel spreadsheet look professional.
One caution about the order of operations. The formatter builds a new, formatted file from your data, so settle your annotations in the source first and then check the formatted copy for anything you expected to carry over. If a note matters to the reader, the notes column is the version that is certain to be in the output because it is ordinary cell content.
FAQ
Can I convert notes to comments in Excel?
The simplest dependable way is to copy the note's text, delete the note, and add a new comment on the same cell with the text pasted in. Your version of Excel may also offer a conversion command on the Review tab, but Microsoft's insert-comments page does not describe one, so check it on a copy. Only do this if you actually want someone to reply.
Do Excel comments show when printed?
Threaded comments do not print as they are displayed on the worksheet. Microsoft says you can print them at the end of the sheet. Notes can print at the end of the sheet or as displayed on the sheet. Always check the print preview, and if you are making a PDF, open the PDF before it goes out.
Can other people see my notes?
Yes. A note is part of the file, so anyone who opens the workbook can see it by hovering over the cell, and it travels with every copy. The same goes for comments and their history. If a file is leaving your hands, review every indicator first.
How do I delete all comments at once?
Microsoft's insert-comments page describes deleting a single comment (right-click the cell, then Delete Comment) or a single note (Delete Note). Your version may offer a bulk option on the Review tab, but menus vary by version, platform and the web app, so look there on your own build. Either way, finish by opening the Comments pane and hovering the remaining indicators to confirm nothing was left behind.