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

I actually like the direction of travel being taken here. Consistency across products - both in the same family (online/desktop) and across (Excel, Word etc.) is a good thing. I do not believe the products are being dumbed down. The approach to comments helps. Our content collaborators need to focus on the comments that need action. Being able to separate the ones that have been actioned from those that have not is a good thing. Cleaning up the interface is a good thing. I do appreciate that it may feel like a backward step in that keyboard acceleration steps or formatting have not been picked up in this iteration. But we also know that if they incorporated everything then it will take a lot longer to implement the change.

Answer 2

Jay,

I appreciate your feedback. I guess I am not crazy.

I imagine that 99% of Word desktop users are not interested in collaboration, and so these changes really are "disimprovements."

I hope that someone realizes that what may be useful for (at least some) Word online users creates unwelcome hurdles for desktop users.

Best regards,

Andy McClurg