XL98: How to Determine if the Active Cell Contains a Comment

ID: Q184096

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition

SUMMARY

Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition no longer uses cell notes; instead, Excel 98 uses cell comments. Consequently, the macro code you use to determine whether a cell contains a comment is different. This article contains information about programmatically determining whether a cell contains a comment and about compatibility with earlier versions of Microsoft Excel.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support professionals can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about the support options available from Microsoft, please see the following page on the World Wide Web:

   http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/refguide/

Checking for Cell Notes

In earlier versions of Microsoft Excel, you can determine whether the active cell contains a cell note by running a macro that is similar to the following example:

   Sub Contains_Note()
       If ActiveCell.NoteText = "" Then
           MsgBox "cell has no note"
       Else
          MsgBox ActiveCell.NoteText
       End If
   End Sub

NOTE: You can successfully run this macro in Microsoft Excel 98 even though all cell notes are converted to cell comments when you open a Microsoft Excel version 5.0 file in Microsoft Excel 98.

To ensure that the macro works in all versions of Microsoft Excel that support Visual Basic for Applications, use a macro that is similar to the example provided in this article.

Checking for Cell Comments

To ensure future compatibility with Microsoft Excel and specifically with cell comments, you may want to use the Comment property in the Visual Basic macro. In the following macro, the Comment property for a Range object returns a Comment object. If the active cell does not have a comment, the Comment property returns Nothing.

   Sub Has_Comment()
       Dim mycomment As Comment

       Set mycomment = ActiveCell.Comment
       If mycomment Is Nothing Then
           MsgBox "no comment in cell"
       Else
           MsgBox mycomment.Text
       End If
   End Sub

REFERENCES

For more information about cell comments, from the Visual Basic Editor, click the Office Assistant, type "comment," click Search, and then click to view "Comment Property."

NOTE: If the Assistant is hidden, click the Office Assistant button on the Standard toolbar. If the Assistant is not able to answer your query, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q176476
   TITLE     : OFF: Office Assistant Not Answering Visual Basic Questions

Keywords          : kbprg kbdta kbdtacode xlvbahowto xlvbainfo OffVBA 
Version           : MACINTOSH:98
Platform          : MACINTOSH
Issue type        : kbhowto

Last Reviewed: May 18, 1999