This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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,
A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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.
NONE of the given workarounds here (macros, styles etc.) solve the problem mentioned initally. What you need for a proper review with multiple roundtrips are FIXED and VISIBLE comment numbers which do not change even if you add more comments.
In the "real world", complex answers to complex comments are often given in external documents, excel sheets, emails, handwritten or on Skype meetings: "Let's look at comment number 123. Everybody on the same page?"
This was nicely implemented in old Word, when comments started with something like "FK123", in print AND screen version - with "FK" as the author's initials and "123" as a fixed/constant/static number, even if you delete older or insert preceding comments.
How hard can it be?!
Yes, I've just switched to Word 2016 at my university job. This is very frustrating. I used the referral to comments numbers as in the question here routinely in comments on student work. Using paragraph numbering is clumsy and not very helpful. The numbering needs to come back
I agree that using paragraph numbering is a bit clumsy; after all, it is a workaround (which has been required since comment numbering was re-designed in Word 2013).
Doug's macro from 2017 does a better job:
Sub NumberComments()
'Macro created by MVP Doug Robbins, April 2017
Dim i as Long
Dim rngComment as Range
With ActiveDocument
For i = 1 to .Comments.Count
Set rngComment = .Comments(i).Range
With rngComment
If Left(.Text, 7) = "Comment" Then
.Text = "Comment " & i & " " & Mid(.Text, Instr(.Text, "-"))
Else
.Text = "Comment " & i & " - " & .Text
End If
End With
Next i
End With
End Sub
The macro can be run repeatedly to update the numbering.
AMEN! MS has been 'evaluating' comments from the MANY of us that have been writing in. This 'evaluation' has been going on for months with still no help in sight!
Yes, I've just switched to Word 2016 at my university job. This is very frustrating. I used the referral to comments numbers as in the question here routinely in comments on student work. Using paragraph numbering is clumsy and not very helpful. The numbering needs to come back