Forum Discussion
Comment balloon opening on top of text on right side hover
Thanks for the screen shot which helped clarify the situation. I now see that this isn't about modern comments at all. 🙂
In fact, a "stand-alone" comment window like the one in your screen shot indicates that Word can't fit all the comments in the Markup area, because there are too many comments on that particular page. To fix this, increasing the "Preferred width" for the balloons usually helps. You will find that option in the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box. I tend to specify 15 centimeters for the balloons.
I was able to find a workaround, which was to copy and paste the entire document into a blank Word doc created on my computer. (Most of our files originate from external authors that use different versions of Word).
Perhaps it is a compatibility issue.
Thank you for your help!
In my experience, you may have to experiment with several different values for the "Preferred width." However, I have seen what you describe: no matter which value is set, the comments won't "behave." Sometimes, copying and pasting into a new document fixes the issue, but not always. Thanks for the follow-up!
- My workaround is no longer working, and this new feature is still driving me crazy. I found another person with the same problem using the same version of Word that I have:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/ms-word-comments-now-opening-in-annoying-window/f561c94a-cf38-478f-91b0-f581b061bfb7?page=1
I agree with this poster that this issue has become very problematic and has signficantly affected my productivity. I need to work in the comments and the text at the SAME TIME, and the comment I'm working on keeps opening in a new box on top the the text. I click it away, and it opens again after about 10 seconds.
Yes, my documents have lots of comments from multiple people, and those comments tend to be long, but that is how it has always been, and this problem only started happening around the time the Modern Comments update was loaded (which I have, but I have disabled it under Options).
I have a subscription product through my office and cannot revert to a previous version of Word.
If anyone knows of a way to turn off this incredibly annoying feature, please let me know.Unfortunately, if there are sufficiently many comments on the same page, the workaround to increase the "Preferred width" of the balloon/markup area may not help.
Try copying document content into a new, blank document (I believe we discussed that method before).
In addition, you can send feedback to Microsoft. In Word for Windows, use File > Feedback > Send a Frown (for more, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-give-feedback-on-microsoft-office-2b102d44-b43f-4dd2-9ff4-23cf144cfb11).