It was easy. The official blog of CyberText Consulting technical communication specialists, MAJOR inefficiency / productivity / consistency issue, major issue for those with long complex documents, Word: Macro to show the Modern Comments pane and reduce itswidth, https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2021/05/04/word-modern-comments-means-the-price-goes-up-as-productivity-takes-a-massive-hit/, https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/introducing-modern-comments-in-microsoft-word/ba-p/2263182, https://ivacheung.com/2021/07/modern-comments/, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/modern-comments-in-word-53d8b54e-5036-40f8-9a09-3271dea169ba, https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/word-macro-to-show-the-modern-comments-pane-and-reduce-its-width/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XShh1XtFPEc, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/using-modern-comments-in-word-edc6ae71-0a2d-49fe-8faa-986f1e48136a, Word: What you get depends on your version | CyberText Newsletter, https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2021/05/16/word-testing-modern-comments-and-issues-found/, Word: Modern Comments means the price goes up as productivity takes a massive hit | CyberText Newsletter, Adobe Acrobat XI Pro: Always open PDFs at100%. I had the lines connecting comments to the texts recently disappear and it is extremely frustrating. Find out more about the Microsoft MVP Award Program. And there are some real advantages to the new interface. For example, if I try to add a comment elsewhere in the document before posting the one thats in progressor before clicking the X, which will abandon a new comment or leave an existing comment uneditedWord will put me back into that original comment, which will now have a message for me in red: Please post your comment (Ctrl+Enter).. Modern comments provides a consistent commenting experience across Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Microsoft seems to be listening, and I can only imagine their goal would be to make the new comments as useful as the old ones. In those appswhere the old comments tended to get lost in the busy graphical interfacethe Comments pane is a giant step forward. But the requirement to post means that you cant use Find and Replace in comments: Find works, but Replace does not. Figure 2. Can I remove Modern Comments and revert back? The new modern comments experience will affect files where the first comment was added after your organization has the tenant admin setting enabled. If I open a comment using a keyboard shortcut (on a Windows computer) and start typing, the first one or two letters often gets inserted into the main text, They don't use the same autocorrect tools as the main text. Trying out Spoutible as a Twitteralternative, When the job ad for an editor requiresediting, Excel: Convert hours and minutes to minutes, Word: Table or table row goes to next page, Testing ChatGPT against an editor's rewrite, A light-hearted look at how punctuation can change meaning, Word to PDF: Table of Contents not clickable, Trying out Spoutible as a Twitter alternative, Word: Change caption numbering from sequential to chapter numbering, If one or more of my tips have helped you, saved you time, or saved your skin, you can thank me by clicking the PayPal button (or, loss of functionality that has existed since comments were introduced many years ago (its broken), extra clicks and mouse movements that have to be done to insert, save, or edit a comment (its not ergonomically efficient), impingement on valuable screen real estate (its hard to use and is not efficient), lack of connection between comments and the text they relate to (its hard to use and is not efficient), resulting additional time and loss of productivity (and therefore extra cost to the client) it takes to review/edit documents and make comments for author action (its not efficient). Microsoft Teams first launched in March of 2017 and has picked up many new features since then. My typing has evolved to use those features. Learn how your comment data is processed. Since then, Ive allowed my laptop to upgrade to the latest Word 365 (version 2014, build 13929.20296), and have extensively tested Modern Comments to see what the issues are and how they may affect writers and especially editors, who often work on very long and complex documents written for fields such as the corporate and business world, government, legal and regulatory bodies, medical entities, academia and education, and more, as well as fiction books. Users will be able to respond to comments directly from an email notification and edit, delete or resolve a comment thread from within the comment. Awful. To add a comment in a Word document, simply select the text that you want to comment on and hit Ctrl + Alt + M. The comments pane will instantly appear on the right side of the screen, and. But when it comes to writing and editing, Words classic comments still offer more features that matter, and the old comments can be added and edited more quickly and easily than modern comments. Over the last year and a half (beginning in April 2021), Microsoft has been rolling out its "modern comments" to Word 365 users on both Windows and Mac platforms. These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. If you don't find the missing file in these locations, open Word, and select File > Info > Manage Document > Recover Unsaved Documents. This is true for Insiders as well. Microsoft has a new "modern commenting experience" and wanted to extend it over the various editions of Word. The functionality of using comments has been greatly reduced with the introduction of Modern Comments (MC) into Microsoft Word. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. To do this, select Start, enter .asd in the Search box, then press Enter. Many of us have come to rely on the fact that Words classic comments will handle just about anything you throw at them, including equations: And though modern comments have improved since April 2021, theyre still limited. That cartoon is hilarious. Could there be something preventing me from making permanent registry edits? Escape doesnt do it on my Mac in Office 365. Other features around threading have also been added. This also completes our goal of aligning the commenting experience across Word platforms and other Office apps, especially in Word, Excel & PowerPoint. You can find a petition related to turning off modern comments here: https://www.change.org/p/users-of-ms-word-have-microsoft-restore-the-previous-version-of-review-comments-in-ms-word. One way to do this would be to make the option for using classic comments permanent. This allows you to temporarily revert the comments experience to the legacy comments model as the new experience continues to improve and evolve. Thats no doubt part of the plan. Why not allow multiple to be in draft? Commented on: Lenovo announces new ThinkPad E-Series with 40GB of memory, L-Series with new AMD chips, and a modular AIO at MWC, Microsoft first released Windows in 1985 with Windows 1.0, but it wasnt until Windows 3.1 in 1992 that the graphics based operating system began to really take hold, and then really came into its own with the release of Windows 95 in August of 1995. At least on the updates rolled out to me as of 11/10/21, there's now an option to "temporarily" revert back. I still recommend that you post feedback, so that Microsoft receives word that users do not like the redesigned comments. The list of problems with modern comments continues to grow. OMG more forced downloads and apps MEH. "Some people simply receive a document, revise, comment, then return. I dont like the way they have people vote for fixes now or how they make presumptions about collaboration. I found a check box in Advanced track changes options for show lines connecting to text and it does NOTHING. It would be nice to be able to just say no to the updates! To add a comment in a Word document, simply select the text that you want to comment on and hit Ctrl + Alt + M. The comments pane will instantly appear on the right side of the screen, and it will let you type it in. I am still using Word 2019 and it serves me well. Info tab 3. Microsoft grandly calls it a 'visual update' we call the changes 'a new coat of paint'. Use the Feedback facility available within Word. Well, this was the company that gave us Clippy after all. Create a comment thread: Select the text you want to comment on in your document and press Ctrl+Alt+M. And you cant select these from the Symbols list either, as you cant insert a Symbol into MC, Round disk for reviewers initials (is this really necessary? It all seems reasonable enough, but for those who live and breathe document comments it is clearly a step too far as a glimpse of the more than 150, er, comments on Microsoft's post makes clear. We cover everything from the Windows Insider program to Windows 10X. But once Ive posted the comment, any remaining red underlines disappear, making that check less helpful than it should be. Here are two ways to delete comments. Over the last year and a half (beginning in April 2021), Microsoft has been rolling out its modern comments to Word 365 users on both Windows and Mac platforms. Learn more about how to get the most out of Windows 11 here! how to manage them. How do I give feedback on Microsoft Office? Well, praise be! and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. Basic Method to Stop Word from Using "Author" 1. If I forget to post and try to type a new comment, it pulls me back to my previous comment and starts typing, making me lose my spot where I wanted the next comment. Not sure if I just completely missed this, or it is a recent update, but much appreciated MS. You'd go through Word: in Word, click on the Word tab in the upper left. Those comments are presumably the origin of the modern comments in Word 365, a full-featured desktop app. Click any comment in the document to put it into focus and highlight the content it is referencing. Sorry, JavaScript must be enabled to use this app. Figure 2. Everything on the tabs, ribbon and dialogs remains exactly where they are. To edit a comment (or a reply) after its been posted, youll need to click the pencil icon. It used to be in the Preferences dialog box. That may be fine if you only have a few, but if you're working on a tech spec with tens or hundreds, it's almost impossible to tie specific comments in with the text. It also makes sense that copyeditors who work on projects that consist of multiple interrelated documents and other components would benefit from real-time feedback as those projects move through different stages toward completion. I don't share my documents, so being able to edit comments and post when they're finalised is not particularly useful for me, as no one else is looking at them until I send the document. Jul 19 2021 But if, like me, you do most of your work on longer documents that arent sharedand especially if youre not as convinced as I am that the benefits of modern comments outweigh their limitations in Wordgive it more time. For example, to re-create the classic comment above, I could use an equation editor from within the document (or in another document or app), save that as an image, and then copy and paste the image into a comment (though without any option to resize the image): If you open a document with modern comments enabled, and that document includes an equation added using classic comments, you can still view that equation. Click on Save. Every time a machine 'updates' MS Word, I have to 'UPGRADE BACK' to Word 15.5! I recommend that you post feedback on the comment feature. Check these posts out!! I just really need my lines back. Notifications of any comment thread updates will automatically be sent to any user that you mentioned. For example, youre able to type Bold, Italic, Underline and Strikethrough text, but you will not be able to change font type or color inside comments. @Lenka_KerumovaIsn't that such good news. When you resolve comments, theyll be moved out of your way to the Comments pane, where you can always find them later. Please, give us the old Word, or at least fix the awful comments. yw71: Wow, 15 years to 'supports iOS'. It seems to work!! Select the Post comment button or press Ctrl + Enter. If Microsoft gets feedback from sufficiently many users, they mayoffer an option to go back to the older comments design. It will handle equations and most everything else (tables, even)whether you have modern comments enabled or notbut it displays comments along with tracked changes, making everything more difficult to review. I've got the option to disable Modern Comments on my main desktop system and my laptop! My typing has evolved to use those features. Not everyone wants or needs to make changes in real time. Two capital letters at the start of a comment don't get corrected, and simple typos don't get corrected. Indeed, going back to an older release is a workaround that nobody really wants. Track changes worked perfectly before and this was not something that needed to be "fixed". Modern comments sets the stage for a richer Word collaboration experience for you and your teams by enabling modern features such as @mention notifications and more. Method 1: Select the three-dot menu in the comment and then select Delete thread from the drop-down menu. Note that Microsoft does not actively monitor the Tech Community forum for product feedback, as far as I know. Not an Insider? Learn moreabout what other information you should include in your feedback to ensureits actionable and reaches the right people. To turn off modern comments on Windows and MacOS, go to. https://twitter.com/aileverte/status/1442136158964748296. Impossible to bold, impossible to add numbering, extra clicks. Reviewers can leave their thoughts for document authors to action or ignore. I have a number of problems with the useability of these comments, based on the way I have used them in the past (for context, I am an educator and primarily use them when marking student assignments). Modern comments is amateur coding. Further, MS reps on various forums have indicated that the checkbox for turning off this crap feature in other versions of Word is temporary only. It has added an extra space to the side of the document, which wouldn't be an issue except that making any formatting changes under tracked change, which I often also do when marking assignments, goes into the ORIGINAL pane where comments use to be, widening the document even further (extra space for formatting, then another extra space for comments). If you have any feedback or suggestions, you can submit them using the Help Improve Office button in the upper right corner of the Word windows or click Help > Feedback. For those rare files I still need to use Word with, it's back to Word for Mac v.15.50. Thank you so much! What might happen, as a result of user feedback, is that minor tweaks may be introduced, that is, the comment feature may be a little more customizable than it is today. As you accept or reject changes, Word will move to the next change. Comments are slow to open. In Docs, the text in comments cant be formatted in the usual way. Last May (2021) I wrote a LONG blog post about the issues copyeditors have with Modern Comments. It turns comments into a reviewing-oriented Navigation pane. Thanks!! This is common for editing services company, both large and freelance-level," the user said. To reply to a comment, select the Reply icon. Everything in Word else *seems* be working OK just curious. Thats easy to do. @mwarner77Thank you for assisting those of us on Apple products. There have been a number of times I've posted a comment then tried to ctrl+F something in the document, but it won't respond to my ctrl+F. 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