Comment pane opens up

Question

In MS. WORD on Mac Pro, whenever i click on a comment, automatically the comment panel opens up in left and view goes to simple mark up even though all mark up is selected. This is true even for document with single comment. Any fix?

Answer 1

No reflection on you... It's just that the way Microsoft is doing things updated can be any of a dozen possible permutations, each with their own considerations. It can be very deceiving.

Please provide the specific Version Numbers of both macOS & Office in order to confirm.

Have you tried restarting the Mac?

Are you using any 3rd party add-ins or utilities which interact with Word?

Running Office 16.86 on Ventura 913.6.7) I am not able to reproduce what you're reporting. Neither have I seen any similar postings in any of the Mac Word Communities. The only similar behavior is when the Markup Options for Balloons is set to Show All Revisions Inline. With that setting the Reviewing Pane opens when inserting a new Comment but not when clicking an existing Comment in the document. In that case the Display for Review setting doesn't change to Simple Markup either.

Answer 2

Both are updated and I am referring to review pane. Document is just single page and 2 small comments. Still the issue persists.

Answer 3

Just to be clear: If it's on the left it's the Reviewing pane of the Sidebar, not a Comments pane. That is expected behavior when using Legacy Comments: if the length of a Comment exceeds the height of the page on which it is inserted. [There is no Comments task pane when using Legacy Comments. It's associated only with Modern Comments & defaults to the right side.]

The only way to avoid the behavior (other than writing shorter Comments) would be to increase the width of the Markup Area in Word> Preferences> Track Changes - Balloons.

I've never experienced the Display for Review setting being changed, though. It may be due to the volume & nature of the changes.

You haven't indicate your Office & macOS Version Numbers so I'd suggest confirming that both are fully updated. Also, see whether restarting the Mac resolves it.