Some comments not appearing in contextual view, but appear in list view.

Anonymous
2024-09-21T00:50:47+00:00

Greetings,

Since the last update (currently running MS Word Version 2408 (Build 17928.20156), some of the comments that I make in Word documents do not appear in contextual view, even though they appear in list view. I am not able to click on them in the text and have the comment appear in contextual view. After I make some comments, they disappear and are only available in list view. I am working on an important paper for the top medical journal in the world, and it is debilitating as an editor to not be able to make comments. This document is shared with 20 people. It has also happened in another document that I am working on for another client (in this document, it happened before the document was shared).

I called support. They cannot help and claim that it is not a Microsoft issue. I have copied and pasted the text with the broken comments into a new document and the problem still occurs. Saved the document to my PC (instead of OneDrive) and the problem still occurs. I have accessed the document on another computer and the problem still occurs.

I am beyond frustrated. My colleagues, global leaders in their fields, are mainly older and are technologically challenged. They will not understand if I tell them to look at the comments in list view instead of contextual view. Essential comments will be missed. I just need it to work properly. I am beyond frustrated.

Any advice is most appreciated!

Thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-10-22T02:21:57+00:00

    Hi Everyone,

    I've been searching for a solution to this and in a way I'm just glad to have found others having this issue because I was wasting so much time trying to figure it out.

    There seems to be no clear pattern. I thought it was when the comment was attached to tracked changes, but that's not a consistent trigger for the comment to vanish. I believe only comments attached to tracked changes disappear, but not every comment attached to a tracked change disappears.

    I really hope that Microsoft figures this out. It's making editing work take so long. We shouldn't have to guess what does or doesn't cause a comment to disappear and then spend time trying to figure out which character will be safe for attaching a comment to.

    Anyway, I'm on version 2409 (Build 18025.20160)

    Robert

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-10-22T11:20:40+00:00

    I have the same problem.

    Certain comments are only shown in list view, or when I hold the cursor over the text where the comment is made. Copying the text to a new document resolved the problem. However, this is not because my document was corrupted.

    Here's the reason why, in my case, certain comments were only shown in list view.

    Like and earlier post mentioned, the problem occurs when there are comments added to text with other tracked changes. In my case, the adding of a comment by another user unintentionally also caused a formatting change. Hence the text had both a comment and a format change. When copying the text to a new document, the format change tracking was lost (not sure why), and the comment is shown. Similarly, the comment will also show in the original document when turning off "Formating" under the "Show Markup" banner.

    This can easily be reproduced by typing some text, make a formatting change to one word, and add a comment to the same word. A soon as you submit the comment it "disappears" - although it can be found in the list view. Note that other changes to the text, like spelling etc, does not cause the problem.

    To me this looks like a bug. Surely it should be possible to view both a formatting change and comment linked to the same text.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-10-22T18:55:43+00:00

    Excellent sleuthing! I can't believe that this is still not fixed. When I copied and pasted to a new doc, I was still having the issue, but in light of your findings, maybe it is because there were formatting changes. As an editor, I am doing this very frequently.

    Thanks for posting your observations!

    Jenn

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  4. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2024-10-23T01:22:37+00:00

    I have reported your diagnosis to the Word team that is investigating this issue.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-11-05T22:17:00+00:00

    I have the exact same problem! It has impeded my ability to work on complex edits to a book draft with my editor. Is there a solution yet? My only work-around has been to duplicate my comments in bold and in brackets within the text--far from ideal!

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