Changes to Comment Boxes Functionality

Question

In a recent update to Word 365, the way comments boxes work has been changed to focus on collaboration. I am a college professor and I use comments extensively to provide feedback on papers, but I never need to collaborate. The new "features" of comments boxes require added clicks (including having to click that I want to "Post" the comment in the first place after I have typed it), the comments are harder to read for my students, and the keystroke tools that I use for creating comments with canned text no longer work.

Is there some way that I can turn off all the collaboration stuff that I do not need and go back to the former way comments worked, without having to revert to a previous version of Word?

Thank you,

Andy

Answer 1

The best way to improve the feature as it now is, would be to put it back the way it was!

Answer 2

Jay and all,

I appreciate your input.

You make an important point that people have different uses for comments boxes. But the the pre-update comment box feature in the desktop version already has an option to "Reply" and "Resolve." So collaboration is already there.

Assuming a standard is needed across platforms, which is debatable, why is a klunky and less flexible implementation the one that has been made the standard? Why can't the "standard" be the desktop interface?

Without having done a survey, I suspect that the vast majority of desktop users who use comment boxes are not interested in collaboration. They simply want the comment box feature to work the way it has for the last 15 or more years.

My current solution is to revert back to a previous build of Office. I do not like this option, but I simply have too much work to do to get bogged down by this change in behavior. This update has not been rolled out at my university, but if it does, I already anticipate a lot of seriously unhappy people.

Regards,

Andy McClurg

Answer 3

Simon, the important takeaway of this thread is that there are many uses for comments in Word that have nothing to do with collaboration, and that eliminating parts of the feature that serve those uses is a disservice to those users. Andrew McClurg's suggestion of an option setting to enable/disable the "modern commenting" changes -- at least in part -- seems a useful one, although it may be a technical challenge to maintain both old and new code.

Answer 4

Well, it is a serious flaw if "consistency" means that you choose the design of the simplest product (Word Online in this case).

Answer 5

Doug, the latest update in the Insider program (which dropped 4 days ago) includes the new comment balloon:

It is indeed a "disimprovement" for many users. The first time it appeared, I got a popup asking for feedback about it, but anyone can use the File > Feedback > Send a Frown button at any time.

Note that the Post button has a shortcut of Ctrl+Enter. Also, a not-yet-posted comment can be dismissed by the Esc key instead of clicking the X. Strangely, Ctrl+Z doesn't undo the insertion of a comment, but the Undo button in the ribbon does remove it.

I don't have Typeitin, but I did try setting up a script in AutoHotKey. It "almost" worked, but the first 4 or 5 characters of the text that should have been inserted in the comment balloon were inserted in the document body instead. I wasn't able to make the script wait for the balloon to get focus before inserting text, because the balloon doesn't have a recognizable window title.