Excel Tips n Tricks Tip 5 (Modify Shape and Style of Comment Box in Excel 2013)

Before reading this article, please go through the following articles:

1. Excel Tips and Tricks

2. Excel Tips and Tricks 2

3. Excel Tips and Tricks Tip 3 (Quickly Create Many Range Names)

4. Excel Tips and Tricks: Tip 4 (Format a Row Based on Condition in a Single Cell)

After going through this tip you will understand how to modify the shape and style of a Comment Box.

You must be using various kind of shapes in Excel to elaborate on your digital presentation skill in Excel, but have you ever thought of modifying the rectangular shape of a comment box that pops up while inserting a comment into a cell? What if you could change its shape and style also? No worries, this tip will explain how to do that, just keep following.

You can see the rectangular box in picture1 that pops up while choosing "Insert Comment" for a cell.



Picture 1

Excel already has this functionality to change the design of a shape after it's inserted/added but by default it's only available for Shapes that we insert from the Insert Menu, not for a Comment Box. You need to customize the Menu Bar if you want to do so. For now, I would prefer adding the command to the Quick Access Toolbar in order to save the efforts of navigating to any Menu each time you need this command (you can add it to any menu as well).

Use the following procedure to add this command to the Quick Access Toolbar.

STEP 1

Click on File Menu > Options. This will open the Excel Options Dialog Box.



Picture 2

STEP 2

In the Excel Options Dialog Box, on the left pane select "Quick Access Toolbar" then select "All Commands" in the "Choose commands from:" drop down list. (Refer to Picture 3.)



Picture 3

STEP 3

Scroll down the list of all commands and select "Change Shape". Click on the Add button in the middle to add the command on Quick Access Toolbar. Click on OK. You will see this command on the Quick Access Toolbar now.



Picture 4



Picture 5

STEP 4

Let's move on to the actual trick now. Insert a comment by right-clicking on any cell then select "Insert Comment". While the comment box is selected, select the "Change Shape" command, that you've added in the previous steps, on the Quick Access Toolbar.



Picture 6

STEP 5

Select any shape that you like from the opened list of shapes. As soon you click any of the shapes, your comment box will be changed to that immediately.



Picture 7

That's all behind the trick of modifying the shape of a comment box.

Now, how about having a picture in the background of the comment box, be it yours or some other? Want to do so? Follow on…

STEP 6

Select the Comment Box then right-click then select "Format Comment". From the available tabs in the "Format Comment" dialog box select "Colors and Lines". Click on the Color drop down list and select "Fill Effects".

(Refer to the pictures below.)



Picture 8



Picture 9



Picture 10

STEP 7

From the available tabs in the "Fill Effects" dialog box select "Picture". Click on "Select Picture" and select any picture of your choice. After you've selected a picture it will show it right there in the dialog box. Click "OK" > "OK" and you're done. The comment box now contains the picture that you selected.



Picture 11



Picture 12

You can try various combinations of styles and shapes as in the following in picture using the "Format Comment" option.



Picture 13

I Hope you enjoyed learning this trick. A sample is attached with this article for your reference. Follow for more :)