Microsoft Word

How to Move, Copy, or Delete Comments in a Word Document

WordOnce you have inserted a comment in your word document using the Comment feature, and you decide you would like to duplicate it, there are methods that I am sure you are aware of to do just that! But, just in case, I will refresh your memory here.

The steps are:

  1. Highlight the comment mark in your document.
  2. Copy it by clicking CTRL + C. Your comment mark and your comment have now been copied to your Clipboard.
  3. Place your cursor where you would like to copy your comment.
  4. Click CTRL + V. Now, your comment mark has been inserted into your document and the comment associated with it has been added to your document.

To move one of your comments to another location within your document, or to another document, do the following:

  1. Highlight the comment mark for the comment you would like to relocate.
  2. Click CTRL + X to remove the comment mark and comment from your document.
  3. Place your cursor at the location where you would like your comment to now be placed.
  4. Click CTRL + V to insert the comment mark into your document, along with your comment.

Here’s how to remove a comment from your document:

  1. Highlight the comment you would like to remove.
  2. Click either Delete or CTRL + X.

6 thoughts on “How to Move, Copy, or Delete Comments in a Word Document”

  1. What exactly is a “comment mark”?

    I have a Master in Computer Science, and I am googling how to move a comment from being regarding one word to another in the document. And even after reading the instructions, I can not get it working. Highlighting the word, the comment, the line between them? Nopes. Sad, very sad.

    1. From your first query, I am not entirely sure what you are asking, but hopefully my reply will help you. If not, please repost here and I will endeavor to give you the information you are seeking. See my reply below:

      To move a comment, you can cut and paste the text to which the comment is attached. Or you could cut the text of the comment, delete the original comment, insert a new one, and paste in the text. – See more at: http://msgroups.net/word.docmanagement/how-do-i-move-inserted-comments-in-word/80177#sthash.SealZ8cO.dpuf

  2. Uhm, same question here: what is a ‘comment mark’? And what is unclear about Mims’ question?

    In the article you mention how to move a comment as a whole, by clicking the ‘comment mark’. But what is a ‘comment mark’? Your reply to Mims’ post makes it even more confusing, as you do not address the question about the comment mark but instead bring up a totally different procedure, ie. just copying the text and pasting it into a new comment, But that doesn’t solve the problem: we’re just trying to move a comment from one word to another.

    Could you please clarify?

  3. I guess Mim’s question confused me because I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that she had actually created a comment in a document and would have seen the document mark.

    My question to you is, HAVE you actually created a comment in your document?? If you have and still are not sure what a comment mark is, if you Google “comment mark in a Word document” and select images, you will see what I am referring to.

    Of course, if you still have questions, please feel free to post back here and I will be happy to assist you further.

  4. This post does not provide correct information and should be edited or removed as being inaccurate instructions. The correct answer is, “there is no ‘move’ functionality to Word comments — once placed, they are tied to the applied text string.”

  5. The confusion over “comment mark”… the point is this:
    You have to copy all of the highlighted text in the content of your document that the comment is attached to, and paste that into your new document. The copied highlighted text will be inserted into the new document *with the comment* attached to it.

    Note that if you do not copy *all* of the text that is highlighted as being attached to the comment, then you will only succeed in pasting in the text you copied, without the comment.

    Effectively copy and move are exactly the same thing, you still have to follow the above steps, the only difference is that to move, you cut and paste, instead of copy and paste.

    If you try to select the *comment itself*, i.e. the bit in the bubble in the right hand margin, and paste that, then you will only be pasting in the text from the comment into the body of the document. There appears to be no way to select and copy the comment bubble, only its content, and therefore that is all that can be pasted.

    The solution above to delete a comment also seems incorrect… you can highlight the text to which the comment applies and delete or ctrl-x that, and the comment will be deleted along with it. The way to delete a comment without deleting the text to which it refers, however, is to go to REVIEW on the ribbon toolbar, select the comment, by just clicking on the one you want to delete, and you will see that the Delete button in the Comments section of the toolbar will become active – click it and the comment is gone.

    That button has a drop-down where you can also choose to “Delete all comments in document”, or, you can “Delete all comments shown” – this will only be highlighted if you have a document with comments from more than one reviewer, and you have used the Show Markup > Specific People function under Tracking to filter out certain reviewers; you will be displaying only the comments of for example, one of several reviewers, and can use the “Delete all comments shown” button to delete just those currently being viewed. You could then unfilter that view to display the remaining comments from the other reviewers.

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