Forum Discussion
How do I get balloon commenting on the right side of the page?
I'm using Word 2024 because I don't want AI in my interface. Now commenting all appears in the tab side bar. I can click on the "Comment" pulldown in the ribbon to show comments properly, but I can't write in them. This is aggressively hostile to people with vision difficulties. Even with my glasses, that's much smaller than I'm comfortable with.
How can I get the comments that were so good and useful back? If not, how can I change the type size in the sidebar so I can read and write comments?
Microsoft, please, don't ruin your products because you want to make us use AI for things that it's not helpful for. I don't use Word for anything I want AI in and deal with documents I cannot legally allow to be exposed to unverified servers like AI chatbots.
1 Reply
Use Review > Show Comments > Contextual. This places cards in the right margin beside the text; List view places all comments in the far-right pane. To write, select the text or anchor, choose Review > New Comment, type in the card, select Post or press Command+Enter. If editing fails, ensure the document is in Editing mode and is not read-only or protected. You may reply to others, but modern comments do not let you edit their text.
Modern comments have no font-size setting, and document zoom may not enlarge cards. Use macOS display scaling or Accessibility Zoom.
If your build shows the option, open Word > Preferences > General, clear Enable modern comments, and restart Word. This restores legacy comments temporarily; Microsoft says the option will be removed. Comments do not require Copilot. For confidential documents, verify the file's storage location, sharing permissions, and organizational policy separately.
