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
    2018-04-19T20:16:37+00:00

    What are you trying to download? All you have to do is open a Visual Basic Editor window (for example by pressing Alt+F11 or by clicking the Visual Basic button on the Developer tab) in Word, create a Module in the Normal project and paste in the code from my reply in January. Click the Save button on the toolbar. Once you have created and saved the template, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to your newly created macro, so that you can easily run the macro.

    I wish someone would tell me why Microsoft builds an application for people who work with words (i.e., Word), has decades now of experience with it, and then one day removes a feature (and this is one of many) that has significant value for every single person who works with other people on documents (i.e., practically everyone, but especially for the heaviest users (academics, lawyers, etc.)), virtually none of whom have any experience with and no reason to know either that a macro might be the answer or where or how to get it, much less create it.  The fact that a macro can make this work in the useful way it used to means that there is ZERO reason for the functionality to have been removed, and probably zero reason why it could not have been made an option.

    Further, the fact that this is no longer built into the application and is not shared in a clear, findable way within the application itself, but instead requires (after likely months of frustration), doing a web search and maybe finding an answer in support, but just as or more likely finding it on an independent site (when there is one).  And the resolution is a DIY fix (or highly substandard workaround) in an unfamiliar and intimidating way that will require time and effort away from the actual (billable and generally precious) time needed for doing the work for which we have the application to begin with.

    This same lack of readily available information and satisfactory, repeatable fixes from Microsoft occurs for known issues and errors (for example, the havoc that working with comments in Word 2016 and an older version can cause; too many others to recall).

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-04-20T00:18:46+00:00

    Thanks but I do not want these comments numbered in a print view as I work with documents of several hundreds of pages and need them in the normal screen mode.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-04-20T00:19:16+00:00

    I use MS Word for Mac 2016/365..this does not work.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-04-20T00:20:43+00:00

    If you were to use this mode the printing is so small it is not useable!

    MS needs to reinstate this.. We purchased a word processing program, not a basic text editing program! Give us our features back Microsoft! The many of thousands of users are irate!!

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