Comments and notes

Comments

Threads and authorship

View anchored comment threads, and create, edit, reply to, and delete comments. Each comment records its author, which decides who may edit or delete it.

When a comment was written

Each comment and reply shows when it was written in the reader's own time zone, in the browser's language. A file saved by Word 2019 or later, or by this editor, records that moment itself, so readers in different time zones each see it on their own clock. A comment from an older Word records only the time on its author's clock, and it is shown as that time, as Word shows it. A comment written by an earlier version of this editor recorded only a UTC time, so its UTC clock digits are shown as the reader's local time, as Word shows them: it appears shifted by the reader's UTC offset.

Resolving and reopening

Resolving a thread hides its highlight; reopening puts it back.

Deleting commented text

Deleting or cutting commented text never deletes the comment. Trimming the text keeps the comment on what remains; deleting all of it lists the comment under All comments as Original content deleted. In the saved file it is an ordinary comment at the place the text was.

The comment body

A comment body keeps its formatting through an edit; the built-in composer writes plain text.

Footnotes and endnotes

A footnote is drawn at the foot of the page that holds its reference, under a separator line and above the footer; endnotes are drawn after the last paragraph of the document, under a separator line of their own, running onto further pages where they do not fit. With page guides turned off, both are listed under the document instead, footnotes first. Notes are numbered in the document's own format, starting number, and section restarts.

Editing a note

Click a note's number, or the note itself, to put the caret in it; for an endnote, clicking the number is also what takes you to the end of the document. Escape or a click on the number the note opens with puts the caret back just after the reference and scrolls there, and a click on the document leaves the note as well. Insert a note at the caret with Insert footnote and Insert endnote on the right-click menu, in body text or in a table cell, or with Mod+Alt+F and Mod+Alt+D (Mod+Alt+E on macOS); the caret moves into the new note.

A note takes character and paragraph formatting: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, color, highlight, font, size, paragraph style, alignment, spacing, indentation, and tabs. Tables, images, links, comments, lists, page breaks, and further notes cannot be added inside one, and a paste into a note drops images, links, and note references; whatever a document's own note already holds is kept and its text stays editable.

Everything typed in a note goes into the document's history, so Mod+Z takes it back from anywhere. Deleting a note's reference deletes the note, and undo brings both back; Backspace at the start of a note holding nothing but its number does the same and returns the caret to where the reference stood. Deleting a note's text leaves its number standing, and a note left empty is kept.

The number a note is drawn by always comes first, so the caret stops just after it: Home and the left arrow at the start of a note leave the caret where it stands rather than moving in front of the number. Selecting the number and typing over it still works, and the number goes back in front of what you wrote.

Limitations

Notes cannot be edited in comment-only or read-only mode, and the notes listed with page guides turned off are read-only.

A numbering restart on every page is counted straight through, and a document that asks for its endnotes at the end of each section gets them at the end of the document.

Pages and sections lists what a note is drawn without on the page.

Comments and notes in the Editor API lists the commands and queries behind these controls.