Weekly Computer Tip # 392
13 April 2013


How to quickly insert a comment in multiple cells (Excel 2003-2010)

Hope you all had a great Easter break; I did - hence the radio silence. But back to business.

In Excel, comments can be useful to give a suggestion for a change, a question to one of you colleagues, or any other text that relates to part of the worksheet. During yesterday's training session one of my course participants asked whether it was possible to add a single comment to more than one cell.

Here's how:

  1. Right-click the first cell with which the comment is to be associated.
  2. Select the Insert Comment option from the shortcut menu.
  3. Type the text of the comment.
  4. Copy the cell containing the comment. (CTRL+C, anyone?)
  5. Select all cells that should have the same comment. (Hold down your CTRL key to select cells that are not next to one another.)
  6. Right-click any of the selected cells and select Paste Special to open the Paste Special dialog box.
  7. Select the Comments radio button.
  8. Click OK.

Thanks for the inspiration, Maxine!

By the way, if you want to print the comments, you might want to have a look at tip 142. An oldie, but a goodie!

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