OS X Word - how do I get comments to appear in balloons, not sidebar?

Question

Using Word 16.42, on OS X , 10.15.5. When I create a comment, or I view a document with comments, comments show up in the sidebar, not in the document (see image). The documents are in "Print Layout".

How do I get the comments to be displayed as baloons directly on the document?

I have tried multiple settings, have deleted all of the ~/Library files, and have even tried resinstalling Office. Nothing helps. Any suggestions?

thanks.

Answer 1

here's the image of how the comments appear.

Answer 2

Hi @Hochheiser, Harry Stewart ,

I tested Comments in Office for Mac 10.15 but I didn't you problem. Did this problem appear in all Word documents?

Where did you store the document?

Try to remove Office completely and re-install, please refer to this support article:

troubleshoot-office-for-mac-issues-by-completely-uninstalling-before-you-reinstall-ec3aa66e-6a76-451f-9d35-cba2e14e94c0

Any updates please let me know and I'm glad to help you.

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Answer 3

Thanks for your reply.

I removed Office completely and re-installed. At first, the comments worked as desired, including opening a document that was on my local drive, and another from DropBox. The first two worked fine. However, I then opened a docx file found on my Box drive, and this file came up with the comments in the sidebar. I returned to the first two files, and they now open with the comments in the sidebar as well. Is it possible that the location of the file might make a difference?

Answer 4

After working as expected on a few files, it then reverted back to the undesirable behavior on files, including those stored locally on my hard drive. Any idea what might be up?

Answer 5

I installed the lastest Office from office.com, both times.