Adding Comments to Slides
The capability to add comments to slides is a useful reviewing utility that is shared with other Office XP applications, such as Word and Excel. You can use comments as part of PowerPoint's collaborative reviewing process or use the comments feature on its own.
Note
Comments aren't the same as notes. You add comments within a presentation to provide input on specific slides. Comments are usually deleted after you read them and update your presentation. Notes are information you keep with your presentation to provide additional information as you speak.
→ For details on creating notes, see “Creating Notes and Handouts” in Chapter 10, “Creating and Printing Presentation Materials.”
To add a comment to a slide, click the Insert Comment button on the Reviewing toolbar or choose Insert, Comment. If it isn't already open, the Reviewing toolbar appears when you insert a comment.
→ To learn more about the buttons on the Reviewing toolbar, see “Using the Reviewing Toolbar” in this chapter.
A yellow box appears at the top-left corner of your slide; your name appears as the reviewer. Figure 7.3 illustrates a sample comment box.
Figure 7.3. Comments provide a way to get feedback on your presentation.
Note
You can't add a comment in Slide Sorter view; this option is dimmed on the menu.
PowerPoint places all general comments in the upper-left corner of the slide by default. If you add more than one comment to the slide, it is placed on top of the existing comment, covering most of it. You can move the comment from its default location by selecting it and dragging it with the mouse.
You can also attach a comment to a selected element on the slide. For example, you could create a comment about the overall content that appears in the top-left corner and then attach individual comments to selected text or a selected graphic object as well.
Enter your comments in the yellow box, which expands to fit the length of your comment.
To change the reviewer name, choose Tools, Options, and enter a new name in the User Information group box on the General tab.
Reviewing Comments
If you don't plan to use the Revisions pane to review comments in a presentation, you can use the Reviewing toolbar to move from comment to comment, evaluating each comment as you progress. To review comments, click the Markup button on the Reviewing toolbar if comments don't appear.
Don't want comments to appear in your presentation? See the “Troubleshooting” section at the end of the chapter.
In general, comments should be apparent because of their bright yellow color. In a long presentation, it can be easier simply to jump to the next comment rather than look at each slide. To do this, click the Next Item button on the Reviewing toolbar.
Note
To jump back to a previous comment and look at it again, click the Previous Item button.
Note
When you reach the end of a presentation, clicking the Next Item button brings you back to the first comment of the presentation.
After you read a comment, you might want to delete it. To do so, select it and click the Delete Comment button on the Reviewing toolbar.