Comment balloons will not print. WORD 2010

Anonymous
2011-10-25T22:05:21+00:00

Comment balloons will not print.  I have a document that has insertions and deletiions in the text and comments in balloons in the right margin.  When I try to print it, the space is there in the right hand marginto accomidate the ballons but the balloons don't print.  They show up in the Word Print Preview.

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Anonymous
2014-01-15T14:08:17+00:00

This is a very old thread, but i'll post here as it's the top Google answer for 'word comments not printing.' I had this problem with a couple of users and i found the problem was that if a document is displayed in the Windows Explorer preview pane comments balloons won't print. With the preview pane disabled (or if you open the document from within Word, as others suggested), it will work. 

If it has been opened in the preview pane you need to open task manager and kill winword.exe if it is running in order for it to work.

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Anonymous
2012-05-17T17:55:05+00:00

Comment balloons will not print.  I have a document that has insertions and deletiions in the text and comments in balloons in the right margin.  When I try to print it, the space is there in the right hand marginto accomidate the ballons but the balloons don't print.  They show up in the Word Print Preview.

Here's what works for me.  It is still annoying, but at least I can get the comments to print in the shaded area on the paper to match the print preview.  This works for me for printing to PDF, to a networked HP, and to a networked Xerox Mobile Express driver.  I hope it works for you, too.

  1. Close Word.
  2. Re-open Word.
  3. Using Word (not Windows Explorer), open the document.
  4. Print your file.  On the Print page, under Settings, click the button that holds the options like "Print all pages" and make sure that the "Print mark-up" is checked.

I've started doing a test run by printing 1 page to the printer "Adobe PDF", so I know the comment balloons are really printing. This keeps me from wasting paper and pricey color toner, and saves the interruption of a jog down the hall to the network printer.  Once I know the balloons are visible in the PDF, then I send the whole document to print on the network printer.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-10-01T21:39:04+00:00

    I'm sorry, but what is your point? Comments and printing comments are supported in Compatibility Mode.

    The document was originally created as .doc, so nothing had to be compromised to open it in the mode it was created in.

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  2. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-10-01T21:28:09+00:00

    The logic behind my statement is that if a document is opened in Compatibility Mode, certain features may necessarily have to be compromised to allow that to happen.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-10-01T20:03:25+00:00

    Stefen,

    I'm criticising Microsoft, not voluntary forum participants. It's Microsoft's responsibility to deal with bugs, but software support from Microsoft is increasingly poor or absent.

    "I have seen documents whose comments have behaved unexpectedly, and that can often be fixed by copying the content, minus the final paragraph mark, into a new, blank document. In such cases, it isn't a bug, but a damaged document."

    As I've mentioned, it's a year ago now, but I think I did that without success.

    It's not a bug if that happens, you say, but what damaged the document? If it's caused by a storage device fault, it obviously isn't a bug, but if it's caused by software, it IS a bug. "Damaged document" can be a convenient excuse not to fix bugs. If the document was damaged, why didn't Word display an error message to that effect? The program knows very well if something is damaged - or should know if written properly. And why no error message when comments are displayed and I choose to print them - and they don't print?

    Before posting what worked for me a year ago, I had tried all the other solutions posted. It's a bit late now to find a solution in my case, but when so many users are having similar problems, the decent thing to do by Microsoft would be to do something about it.

    I wish I could boot Microsoft completely out of my computer, as the company increasingly doesn't care about its customers, and they just leave bugs around in many products. Or they just withdraw support if a program (for example Expression Web 4) is so full of bugs that they can't be bothered to repair it, and after people have paid for it.

    In any case, my dissatisfaction is directed at the company, not forum users.

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