Annotate for Excel 2007/2010 PRO is a custom ribbon toolbar for Microsoft Excel that improves Excel's Commenting feature by

• Automatically adding the user's preferred name/initials and a date stamp to all Comments
• Auto-sizing Comments
• Unifying all Commenting features in one Excel Ribbon
• Providing 200+ buttons that can be easily customized to add stock Comments to any Worksheet
• Making it easy to export all Comments on a Worksheet, including the Cell location of the Comment
  

If you frequently add similar text to Excel documents (reviewing monthly reports, processing expense accounts etc), you'll love Annotate's ability to add hundreds of buttons that automate commenting on documents.

With one click, you can add a detailed Comment or Cell text. Best of all, Annotate for Word 2007/2010 PRO makes it easy to update all of the content used by the Annotate toolbar. You can change:

• The labels of groups
• The labels of buttons and drop-downs
• The content that appears when you click a button

Table of Contents:

• Basic Functionality: using Annotate to quickly add comments to documents
• Customizing Annotate for Excel PRO content: easily change the names of buttons, and the content that appears when you click
• Options for adding selected Comments to a Word document
  

See our FAQ for issues regarding installation and troubleshooting.

Basic Functionality: Formatting and Quickly Adding Comments to Excel Documents

Annotate is designed to make it easy to add detailed Comments and pre-written text to spreadsheets. These Comments can be inline, or margin comments. The bulk of these buttons, and their underlying content, can be easily edited. Annotate also unifies crucial Microsoft Excel functionality into a single toolbar, so you can Comment, highlight Cells, and edit your Comment Library all from one place.

To use Annotate for Excel after installation:

1. Open Microsoft Excel 2007 or 2010 and a new Worksheet
2. Open the document you'd like to edit (or a blank document just for practice)
3. Select the Annotate Ribbon (the image shows the PRO Edition)
   
   
4. Choose a Cell in the Worksheet.
   
5. Click Comment in the Annotate Ribbon OR one of the 200+ built-in buttons. If you click Comment, then add text to the popup (shown below), your text will be ADDED to an existing Comment, making it easy to append text. Each Comment will be date-stamped. You can (of course) still use Excel's basic Commenting feature by visiting the Review tab in the Excel Ribbon. You'll have to add some content to the Comment Library before making use of the customizable buttons (see the next section of this page for info on editing the Comment Library).

   

6. Notice that there are a few options and built in formatting buttons:

• Show Comments simply shows or hides all of the Comments on a Worksheet. This value 'sticks' when you use Excel, so it will default to your last selection, regardless of Spreadsheet
• Auto Resize toggles a feature of Annotate the subtly resizes Comment bubbles to make them more legible
• Highlight Comments toggles a feature of Annotate that turns a Cell that has a comment yellow, so that Comments are easier to find
• Strikeout Cell places a line through the text IN a Cell
• Bold Cell bolds the text in a Cell
• Next and Previous Comment moves to the next or previous Comment in the Worksheet
• Delete Comment removes a Comment and any Cell highlighting
• Color Buttons will turn a selected range a specific color

Customizing Annotate for Excel 2007/2010

Annotate for Excel 2007/2010 makes it easy to change the content that appears when you click. Here's how:

1. Make sure you are viewing the Annotate ribbon by clicking on the Annotate tab
   
   
2. Click the Customize button on the far right side of the ribbon.
   
   
3. Your comment library will appear in a grid above the Worksheet.
   
   
   
• You can close it at any time by clicking the x just above the Save and Update button.
• You can quickly scroll through the database, adding Custom Labels and Custom Comments that will appear
• Click the Help and Instructions button for a pop-up that explains the difference between these items.
• Click the Edit Details button for a specific row for a pop-up that gives you a more detailed view and more room to write.
  
  
4. You can click Save and Update Menus at any time to refresh the content in your Annotate Ribbon
   • Notice that you have many, many 'Custom' entries that you can change.
   • Notice that there is an 'In Text Comments' group of buttons that place selected text into the body of the document rather than a marginal note. These can also be edited and added to. 
   • You can change the location and width of the Comment Library. You can resize individual columns and scroll left and right.