I'd like to see comments in a word document shown in balloons on the documents page. However, they are shown in a side bar, outside the document. does anyone know how to have them showing in balloons and on/within the documents page?

Newsbreak....YOU CAN'T. If you HATE this "feature" then give as much negative feedback as possible through the in-app feedback tool. In the last year MS introduced what they refer to as 'Modern Comments' which is really just a pain in the butt for many users (as you can tell by the complaints rampant on the internet concerning this forced 'upgrade'). For a little while there was a checkbox to revert to the much more intuitive, useful and more functional style of balloon comments that they intentionally made temporary and appears to no longer be available. Some are rolling back to prior versions of Word because of this. Others are abandoning Word because of it. For some reason, MS doesn't acknowledge the problem and refuses to communicate about it.Write to them, call them, cajole them, do whatever you can to make that 'upgrade' optional rather than fiat.

ALV1179 You should be able to clear the "Enable modern comments" option in Word Preferences.

Stefan_Blom NOPE....that option doesn't exist anymore. It was there as a temporary stopgap while they rolled out the 'feature'. No checkbox to turn off 'not-so-useful-modern-comments' in the most recent revision of Word for Mac 2021, nor a checkbox to disable modern comments. Where the checkbox USED to be (from what I can see in previous articles, etc) is blank. There is no way within the program to do it. If someone from Microsoft would like to comment or reveal some secret way to roll back just that, and go back to comments in balloons on the side of the text instead of the stupid comment pane (pain??) where you have to 'post' your comment and there's no control over autocorrect, spellcheck, etc, that would be wonderful. If Microsoft would re-implement the enable modern comments option that you can un-check, THAT would be wonderful. If they would do away with it altogether that would be wonderful as well. Leaving things as they are is just unacceptable.

mtvet Thanks for the update. I wasn't aware that the check box had been removed in subscription versions of Word/Office for Mac. It is still present (at File > Options > General) in Word 365 for Windows (specifically Microsoft 365 Personal, Word version 2206).

Stefan_Blom I’m not talking about the subscription version. But that checkbox has always been talked about as a temporary thing…something that just makes no sense, especially given the furor among the community of editing professionals who think that modern comments ought to be a thing of the past, and the future of comments should be as they were.

comments on word for Mac | Microsoft Community Hub

mtvet
Copper Contributor
Jul 24, 2022
Newsbreak....YOU CAN'T. If you HATE this "feature" then give as much negative feedback as possible through the in-app feedback tool. In the last year MS introduced what they refer to as 'Modern Comments' which is really just a pain in the butt for many users (as you can tell by the complaints rampant on the internet concerning this forced 'upgrade'). For a little while there was a checkbox to revert to the much more intuitive, useful and more functional style of balloon comments that they intentionally made temporary and appears to no longer be available. Some are rolling back to prior versions of Word because of this. Others are abandoning Word because of it. For some reason, MS doesn't acknowledge the problem and refuses to communicate about it.

Write to them, call them, cajole them, do whatever you can to make that 'upgrade' optional rather than fiat.
Stefan_Blom
MVP
Jul 25, 2022
ALV1179

You should be able to clear the "Enable modern comments" option in Word Preferences.
- mtvet
  Copper Contributor
  Jul 25, 2022
  Stefan_Blom NOPE....that option doesn't exist anymore. It was there as a temporary stopgap while they rolled out the 'feature'. No checkbox to turn off 'not-so-useful-modern-comments' in the most recent revision of Word for Mac 2021, nor a checkbox to disable modern comments. Where the checkbox USED to be (from what I can see in previous articles, etc) is blank. There is no way within the program to do it. If someone from Microsoft would like to comment or reveal some secret way to roll back just that, and go back to comments in balloons on the side of the text instead of the stupid comment pane (pain??) where you have to 'post' your comment and there's no control over autocorrect, spellcheck, etc, that would be wonderful.
  
  If Microsoft would re-implement the enable modern comments option that you can un-check, THAT would be wonderful. If they would do away with it altogether that would be wonderful as well. Leaving things as they are is just unacceptable.
  - Stefan_Blom
    MVP
    Jul 26, 2022
    mtvet
    
    Thanks for the update.
    
    I wasn't aware that the check box had been removed in subscription versions of Word/Office for Mac. It is still present (at File > Options > General) in Word 365 for Windows (specifically Microsoft 365 Personal, Word version 2206).

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