Add comments and highlight text

You and anyone you collaborate with can add comments to text, objects, charts, and table cells. You can also add comments to a spreadsheet. Comments are useful for making notes to yourself, asking questions of reviewers, conveying editorial suggestions, and so on.

You can also highlight text and then comment on it.

When you don’t want comments and highlights to be visible, you can hide them.

Add a comment

Commented text is highlighted with a color unique to the comment’s author. Objects and table cells with comments have a comment marker.

  1. Select text, or click an object, then click Comment in the toolbar.

    A comment appears.

  2. Enter your comment, then click outside the comment to finish.

To read a comment, click it. To remove the comment, click Delete in the comment.

To add a comment directly to the spreadsheet, click anywhere on the spreadsheet, then click Comment in the toolbar. These comments are always open.

Set author name and comment color

  1. Choose Numbers > Preferences (from the Numbers menu at the top of your computer screen), then click General.

  2. Enter a name in the Author field, then close the window.

  3. To change the color, choose View > Comments > Author Color (from the View menu at the top of your computer screen), then choose a color.

Highlight text

You can highlight text and then add comments.

  1. Select the text, then choose Insert > Highlight from the Insert menu at the top of your computer screen.

  2. To add a comment, click the text and type a comment.

To remove the highlight, select the text, then choose Edit > Remove Highlights and Comments.

Show or hide comments