Excel 2013 Comments Disappear

Question

I am a very experienced Excel user and rarely run into a situation I cannot resolve myself. I am working on a single worksheet. Not shared. I have a sizable table (10 across x 1450 down). I am adding comments to more than half of the cells. Most are just the same comment copied to multiple cells. The purpose of this spread sheet is to filter the columns and choose criteria from 3 of the filters. This will result in 1 row displayed after all three filters are applied.

I am about half way through adding comments to the desired cells and many of the comments are disappearing from the cells I have already added comments to. Many of the previously added comments remain - only some are missing. It is not a matter of any of the following:

• Show all comments is selected
• Comments have not moved or been resized due to filters
• The comment indicator is gone too (red triangle in top right corner)
• Right Click Menu only offers "Add Comment" - "Edit Comment" is not an option
• There are no Freeze Panes in this workbook
• I have saved after adding comments and they have disappeared in between saves
• It is not a shared document. No other users have access.
• I am not working from an email attachment

Following all the rules... Open document >> make changes >> save changes >> repeat >> Some comments disappear.

Is there a limit to how many cells can have comments? As it stands, the table has 14,500 cells - more than half of which will eventually have comments; currently more than 4000 have comments but that number is expected to grow.

Answer 1

As requested, I have copied half of the data from my workbook into a new, test workbook. The new test workbook is able to show comments normally.

Consequently, I had tried this step before posting my question to this board and got the same results in both trials.

****************NOTE****************

Most (but not all) comments are being added to the cells while the column filters are applied. In other words, I filter columns A and B which leaves me with about 50 rows of filter results. I then add comments to the cells in columns G, H, I and J. After filtering and commenting as described, I notice previous comments added to cells in columns G, H, I and J (after different filters were applied to A and B) have disappeared.

It is not a matter of me adding comments to cells that already have comments. I am not over-writing comments. It always happens and only happens when I add comments to cells with no existing comments - after doing this, some cells with comments lose their comments.

Answer 2

Hello Giuseppe,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

There is no limit for adding Comments in an Excel Worksheet or Workbook.

To resolve the issue check if this is an issue particularly to the current workbook you are working on. Create a new test Excel Workbook and copy and paste half the data from your current workbook to the new test workbook.

Check if the new test workbook is able to show comments normally.

Try the above step and let us know the result.

Thank you.