Most Excel trainers tell you to right-click each comment and choose 'Hide Comment' — as if you’re supposed to do that 47 times across a financial model. That’s not workflow design; it’s busywork masquerading as best practice.
The Setup
We’re working with a Q2 Sales Review workbook used by the APAC channel team at NexaTech. It tracks 9 regional reps, their assigned accounts, revenue targets, actuals, and internal notes — some added as legacy Excel comments (pre-365), others as modern Notes (post-2019). These annotations include context like 'Client delayed PO due to audit', 'Pricing renegotiation pending', or 'Follow up after earnings call'. They’re valuable — but they’re visual noise during stakeholder review mode.
| Rep Name | Account | Target ($) | Actual ($) | Status | Note/Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sarah Chen | Acme Corp | $45,200 | $47,850 | ✅ On Track | Client confirmed renewal on 2024-03-15 (comment) |
| Diego Mendoza | VistaLabs Inc | $38,900 | $32,100 | ⚠️ At Risk | Contract extension delayed — legal review pending (note) |
| Priya Kapoor | Nexus Health | $52,400 | $54,630 | ✅ On Track | Added $2.2K upsell after demo (comment) |
| James Wu | StrataLogix | $61,700 | $58,920 | ⚠️ At Risk | PO stuck in procurement queue — escalate to Procurement Lead (note) |
| Amina Diallo | Greenfield Solutions | $29,300 | $31,450 | ✅ On Track | Pilot success — expanding to 3 new sites (comment) |
| Rajiv Patel | TerraNova Energy | $73,100 | $69,800 | ⚠️ At Risk | Budget freeze until Q3 — no new spend approved (note) |
| Maya Torres | Orion MedSystems | $44,600 | $46,200 | ✅ On Track | Finalized integration timeline — go-live June 12 (comment) |
| Kenji Tanaka | QuantumEdge AI | $82,500 | $79,300 | ⚠️ At Risk | CTO on leave until May 20 — decision postponed (note) |
Comments live in cells B2, D4, and F7. Notes appear in C3, E5, and G8. You can spot them by the small red triangle in the top-right corner of those cells.
The Challenge
Here’s what makes hiding comments in Excel tricky: Excel treats comments (legacy, pre-2018) and notes (introduced in Office 365 v1907) as separate objects — with different visibility controls, keyboard shortcuts, and even different ribbon locations. Most people don’t realize that ‘Hide Comment’ doesn’t affect Notes — and vice versa. Worse: toggling visibility globally doesn’t persist across sessions unless you change the default view setting.
The real pain point? When you share the file with Finance for approval, they see every annotation — even though only Sales leadership needs that context. And yes, Ctrl+Shift+O is useless here. That shortcut opens the Object Browser — not comment controls.
Walking Through It
Let’s fix this — step by step — using the exact same dataset above. We’ll start with the most common ask: how do I hide comments in Excel?
How to hide comments in Excel (individual & bulk)
First, identify which cells contain legacy comments (red triangle, right-click → 'Edit Comment'). In our sample: B2, D4, F7. To hide just one: select the cell → right-click → Hide Comment. Done.
But doing that manually defeats the purpose. Here’s the fast way: press Alt + R + C + H. That’s the ribbon sequence: Review tab → Comments group → Hide All Comments. Yes — it hides *all* legacy comments in the entire workbook, not just the active sheet. Try it now. Watch the red triangles vanish from B2, D4, and F7.
How to hide all comments in Excel (and why it’s not enough)
Alt + R + C + H works — but it only touches legacy comments. Our Notes (C3, E5, G8) remain visible. That’s why many users think the shortcut ‘didn’t work’. To hide Notes, you need a different path: Alt + R + N + H (Review → Notes → Hide All Notes). Do both sequences back-to-back, and your sheet clears instantly.
Here’s the counterintuitive part: hiding all comments and notes via ribbon shortcuts does not change the default display setting. So when you reopen the file tomorrow, they’ll reappear — unless you adjust the global option.
How to hide note in Excel (the persistent fix)
To prevent Notes and Comments from auto-displaying on file open, go to File → Options → Advanced. Scroll down to the Display section. Uncheck: 'Show comment indicators' and 'Show notes'. This is the only setting that makes hiding stick.
Pro tip: You can toggle this on/off with a single macro if you switch between ‘review mode’ and ‘presentation mode’ often. Paste this into VBA (Alt+F11 → Insert Module):Sub ToggleCommentVisibility()
Application.DisplayCommentIndicator = xlNoIndicator
Application.DisplayNotes = False
End Sub
Assign it to Ctrl+Shift+H — and you’ve got one-key silence.
The Result
After applying both Alt + R + C + H and Alt + R + N + H, plus disabling the indicators in Options, your worksheet looks clean — no red triangles, no pop-ups on hover, no accidental reveals. Here’s the final state:
| Rep Name | Account | Target ($) | Actual ($) | Status | Note/Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sarah Chen | Acme Corp | $45,200 | $47,850 | ✅ On Track | Client confirmed renewal on 2024-03-15 |
| Diego Mendoza | VistaLabs Inc | $38,900 | $32,100 | ⚠️ At Risk | Contract extension delayed — legal review pending |
| Priya Kapoor | Nexus Health | $52,400 | $54,630 | ✅ On Track | Added $2.2K upsell after demo |
| James Wu | StrataLogix | $61,700 | $58,920 | ⚠️ At Risk | PO stuck in procurement queue — escalate to Procurement Lead |
| Amina Diallo | Greenfield Solutions | $29,300 | $31,450 | ✅ On Track | Pilot success — expanding to 3 new sites |
| Rajiv Patel | TerraNova Energy | $73,100 | $69,800 | ⚠️ At Risk | Budget freeze until Q3 — no new spend approved |
| Maya Torres | Orion MedSystems | $44,600 | $46,200 | ✅ On Track | Finalized integration timeline — go-live June 12 |
| Kenji Tanaka | QuantumEdge AI | $82,500 | $79,300 | ⚠️ At Risk | CTO on leave until May 20 — decision postponed |
No visual clutter. No accidental hover reveals. But the annotations are still there — intact — ready when you need them again.
What Could Go Wrong
Three mistakes I see weekly — and how to reverse them before sending that file to the CFO:
- Mistake #1: Using 'Delete Comment' instead of 'Hide Comment'. That red triangle disappears — but so does the content forever. If you meant to hide, not erase, press Ctrl+Z immediately. Better yet: train your muscle memory to use Alt+R+C+H instead of right-click → Delete.
- Mistake #2: Hiding Notes but forgetting legacy Comments — or vice versa. You’ll swear the shortcut failed. Check cell corners: red triangle = comment; purple dot = note. Use both Alt+R+C+H and Alt+R+N+H in sequence.
- Mistake #3: Turning off indicators in Options — then sharing the file with someone whose Excel has them enabled. Their view will show everything. Solution: save a copy with File → Export → Change File Type → Excel Binary Workbook (.xlsb) — this embeds display settings more reliably than .xlsx.
Here’s your quick-reference cheat sheet — print it, pin it, or paste it into your Quick Access Toolbar:
| Action | Shortcut | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hide all legacy comments | Alt + R + C + H | Works across all sheets in workbook |
| Hide all Notes | Alt + R + N + H | Only affects Notes — not Comments |
| Toggle comment indicators (global) | File → Options → Advanced → uncheck 'Show comment indicators' | Must be set per-user, not per-file |
| Quick-hide macro (assign to Ctrl+Shift+H) | VBA code shown above | Persists across sessions if saved in Personal Macro Workbook |
