disabling word's modern comments on mac

Question

I am running macOS Monterey and recently installed Microsoft Home & Business 2021 suite (upgrading from my previous 2016 versions). I'm currently running Word 2021 v. 16.57. While I see the use for Word's new "modern comments" in many team project situations, these changes are not at all working for my purposes (editing others' papers and including a large number of comments). I have followed the instructions that Microsoft provides to "opt out" of modern comments by going to general preferences, but there is no check box or reference to modern comments there. I have also checked every single other setting in Word, and nowhere does it allow me to revert to classic comments. I literally spent 2.5 hours in chat with Microsoft support today, and they are completely unaware of what "modern comments" even are. So, I have the following questions:

1. This page and others state that the "opt out" feature would only be temporary. Has it already been discontinued? https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/introducing-modern-comments-in-microsoft-word/ba-p/2263182#:~:text=Opt%2Dout%3A%20we%20have%20added,link%20below%20for%20more%20details).
2. If the feature is still ongoing, is there a way to turn off modern comments/revert back to classic comments in my version of word?
3. If there is no way to turn off the comments at this time, is there a way to revert to a previous update for mac Word 2021 that does include that feature? If so, which update?
4. If there's absolutely no way to turn off modern comments, is there a way for me to revert back to Word 2016 while still keeping my excel, ppt, and outlook 2021 versions? Both of my purchases were for the whole suite, and I'm worried that the reinstall will revert all apps to 2016 rather than just Word.

Thank you for any help to resolve this horribly time-consuming feature!

Answer 1

Thank you for your help! When I reinstalled, there still wasn't an option for disabling modern comments (first screenshot). After reverting to previous updates, there still wasn't an option listed, even with 16.53 (second screenshot). In addition, Word kept stalling. I've tried installing 16.53, 16.54, and 16.56, and each of them causes Word to crash. Word either quits on its own or I have to force quit because it has stalled. When I reinstalled 16.57, Word doesn't stall anymore, but there's still no option to disable modern comments. Any suggestions for next steps?

Answer 2

Hi,

Sorry for all the inconveniences it may have caused on your side.

We went through your post carefully and it seems like there have no option to disable Modern Comment though you are using Word 16.57, which should have shown the option in General settings(screenshot attached from Word 16.57 in our test Mac device).

So it is suggested to reinstall Word and check if the option will show up. Go to the Applications folder and drag Microsoft Word.app to the trash. Then install the latest version in Update history for Office for Mac - Office release notes | Microsoft Docs.

If there still show no option after the reinstallation, then kindly download the previous version of Word to get the classic comment experience for a temporary workaround and keep Office updates to see if the option will appear. Download 16.54/16.53 only for Word link above as the feature was released in Oct 2021, and this will not affect other Office apps in the latest version still but you can have the older version of Word to work at the same time.

Best Regards,

Mia

Answer 3

Hi,

As the same missing option is happening on other Mac machines in our team even after some updates and reinstallation, so it seems like the issue can be related to some unstable release. As the similar issue can be reproduced on our side, kindly submit your feedback to the related product team to let them get informed and fix this in the next updates. Word · Feedback Community (microsoft.com)

Best Regards,

Mia