Applying a name change to existing comments in an Excel 2007 spreadshe

[novicee]

Applying a name change to existing comments in an Excel 2007 spreadsheet

 

I have inserted comments into cells of an Excel 2007 spreadsheet using "right click mouse > insert comment ". When I hover the cursor over a cell with a comment, a message appears in the "task bar" (not sure this is the correct name for it) at the bottom of the page. The message says, for example,  "Cell E7 commented by JD". I want to expand the initials "JD" to a name and apply the change to all the comments I have already entered.

 

I selected the options, "round MS button at top left of page > Excel Options > Popular > User Name ". The last option is under the heading " Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office".  I changed "JD" to "John". This has become the name that new comments are attributed to but the old comments are still attributed to "JD".

 

Is there a way I can apply the name change to comments entered before the change was made?

 

I would be grateful for any help on this.

[Ponch]

The name doesn't even seem to be a special field in the comment, it is just inserted automatically at the beginning of the text when the comment is 1st created. So I guess no, you'll have to manually edit all comments.

[jaclaz]

No, it is not a "special field" (and it is right that is not "dynamic" as, if you open the same worksheet on another PC/another instance of Excel with a different user name all comments would change accordingly ), it is a sort of "quick template".

 

But still, you can use VBA to change the values in the comments:

http://www.extendoffice.com/documents/excel/678-excel-change-comment-author.html

 

Please understand that this is basically a "replace" function, so hopefully in your case you won't have anything except you initials JD actually containing "JD" or "jd".

 

By default what you should actually have in the comment is "JD:", I would add the ":" colon sign in both the "search" and "replace" fields.

Of course test on a copy of the file, first.

 

jaclaz

[novicee]

jaclaz, thanks very much for the info.