MS Word 2016 comment bubbles not numbered

Anonymous
2016-11-17T18:10:54+00:00

I am using MS Office 2016 and it seems that comment bubbles are no longer numbered like they were in previous versions. When a reviewer using an older version of Word refers to a specific comment by its number, I cannot tell which comment they are referring to because the comments are not numbered in Word 2016. Does anyone know why this feature was removed or how to fix it? It is extremely frustrating that the numbering of comments has been removed. Thank you,

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Stefan Blom 353.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2016-11-17T19:42:44+00:00

In Word 2016 (and 2013), comment numbers only display when you look at the print preview (at File | Print) or when you print the document, unfortunately. As a workaround, you can apply paragraph numbering to the Comment Text style.

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-05-07T11:36:26+00:00

    I have tried this a few times and the problem is looking at the documents of others. If I created the document it is OK but not when I open someone else's document.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-05-07T09:39:58+00:00

    Thanks but when working with the document of others, i.e. their doctoral dissertation this will not work as THEY did not set this up in THEIR document.

    The simple answer is for Microsoft to reinstate/return this important feature for its professional users.

    Perhaps I don't understand what it is you need.

    The functionality for numbered comment bubbles is already built in to Word, but is not a default setting.

    You need to add a Style for comments and select the numbering format you want to use.

    I also review reports and theses, and have no problem adding numbered comments to them.

    Did you try the method proposed in the link?

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-05-06T23:31:19+00:00

    Thanks but when working with the document of others, i.e. their doctoral dissertation this will not work as THEY did not set this up in THEIR document.

    The simple answer is for Microsoft to reinstate/return this important feature for its professional users.

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  4. Stefan Blom 353.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-04-20T06:37:06+00:00

    In Word for Windows, at least, the comment numbers still display in Print Preview and they do print. I agree that making Word less what-you-see-is-what-you-get isn't a good design decision, and you should post feedback for Microsoft in the Uservoice forum at https://word.uservoice.com.

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