More 'Excel Shortcuts for Accountants' Mini Episode 5: Cell Comments

Intro:
Hello everyone. And welcome to the CPA Australia podcast. Today's mini episode features CPA and Excel expert Neil Blackwood. Neil has written articles for the CPA Australia publication In the Black, since 2002, and is the author of Advanced Excel Reporting for Management Accountants. We hope you enjoy Neil's Excel tips today. Over to you, Neil.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
In this podcast, I'm going to talk about cell comments. Now you've probably seen cell comments. They're like little post-it notes for cells. Typically, you'll see a little red triangle in the top right hand corner of a cell that has a cell comment. And when you hover the mouse above the cell, then the cell comment will pop up. To insert a cell comment. You can right click the cell, and there's an insert comment option. Or if you're a keyboard person, you can just hold the shift key down and press F2, function key F2. And that will insert a comment. If you've already got a comment that will allow you to edit the comment as well.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
Now you can use cell comments for a number of different things. So for example, you could put training information into a cell comment. So if a file is handed over, then put people can sort of teach themself how to use the file by following the comments in the cells. You can also use it for documentation purposes. So you can put information maybe about the cell in there. So what goes in the cell or what the cell is trying to calculate if it's got a formula in there. So speaking of formulas, one of the things you can also do is take a copy of the formula and put it into the comment, and then maybe explain what the formula is doing. That can be useful for mission critical type formulas. One advantage with actually having taking a copy of the formula and putting it in the comment is that if the formula gets inadvertently overwritten, so if someone copies over it, then typically the comment won't get cleared. So the formula will still appear in the comment. So you could reinstate the formula by copying it from the comment back into the cell.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
You can also print comments, which a lot of people don't realise. So on the page setup dialogue, under the sheet tab, there is a little option with a dropdown for comments. So you can print the comments at the end of the sheet, or you can print them as displayed on the sheet. So you can use that so that you can print out a sheet and all of the comments that are on there can be printed out as well. A little tip. If you want to see all of the comments at once that are on a sheet, because typically they're hidden, if you want to make them all visible, couple of ways to do it.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
You can click on the review tab and there is a show all comments option. And you can add that to your quick access toolbar with a right click. If you're a keyboard person, you can press the alt key. So these are pressed in sequence. These are not held down. So press the alt key, press the V, V for Victor key, and the C, C for comment key. And that will display all of the comments. And if you press it again, so alt VC, then that will then hide the comments as well. So it's a quick way to display and hide all of the comments on a sheet.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
Now, if you need a little bit more room to write either a comment, or instructions, or documentation, another option is use a text box. So text boxes are in the insert ribbon. They're on the far right hand side and they give you a little bit more formatting options when you are creating messages, things like that. And also you can avoid printing them because sometimes you don't want to print what's in a text box because maybe it's instructions, and things like that.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
If you right click the border of a text box, there should be an option for size and properties. If you click that and open up the properties section, there is a print object tick box. And if you untick it, then the text box won't print. So again, that can be handy when the text box is being used for instructions that you don't need to print or documentation. I said, text boxes are useful because you can put a lot of text in them and you can also move them around so you can sort of move them out of the way as well.

Neale Blackwood CPA:
So there's some ideas for using the cell comments as well as the text box in Excel.

Outro:
Thank you so much for sharing your tips with us today, Neil. If you want to find out more about Neil and access further resources, go to www.CPAAustralia.com.au/podcast/58. Make sure you never miss an episode of the CPA Australia podcast by subscribing on iTunes or Stitcher. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.