How to change the default cell annotation format for Excel

If you have some formulas in your Excel workbook that you don't understand, you can insert a comment in a cell that has a formula and explain the formula as necessary. Annotations are a useful reminder that you can use not only to interpret complex formulas, but also to write feedback about other user workbooks to facilitate communication.

In Excel, we can select the cell to which you want to insert the annotation, and then select Insert > Comment, and the comment box appears on the side of the cell, and you can enter the annotation directly in the box, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Inserting a comment

After you create an annotation, you can change the format of the annotation at any time by right-clicking on the cell that contains the annotation (a cell with a small red triangle on the top right), select Edit Comment from the pop-up menu, and then in the comment box, change the formatting of the content you want to change, or click the edge of the comment box to select the entire annotation. Change its format, such as changing the font, font size, text color, and so on. Another option is to right-click on the annotation, choose Format Annotation from the pop-up menu, open the dialog box shown in Figure 2, and then set it.

Figure 2

However, if you often use cell annotations and do not want to use the default cell annotation format, you cannot manually change it again and again. There is no way to change the default cell annotation format in Excel, but there is one way to fix it. In fact, the format of cell annotations in Excel is exactly the same as the Windows System ToolTip format, which is a good idea.

What is "ToolTips for Windows systems"? In Excel, for example, when we point the mouse pointer over the "Save" button on the toolbar, we see a small balloon with a yellow background as shown in Figure 3, telling us that this is a "save" button, which is the ToolTip.

Figure 3

To change the default formatting for ToolTips, you need to open the Display Properties dialog box. You can open it by double-clicking Display in Control Panel, as shown in Figure 4. You can also right-click on the desktop and choose Properties from the pop-up menu to open it.

Figure 4

For example, in Windows XP system, when you open the Display Properties dialog box, click the Appearance tab above, and then click the Advanced button at the bottom right, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5

In the Advanced Appearance dialog box, under items, select ToolTips, and then you can set properties such as the font, font size, text color, bold italic, and background color of the prompt box.

Figure 6

Note: This change will affect all annotations that are not formatted and have no effect on the annotations that have been formatted. If you have applied other formatting to some annotations, such as changing the color of the text, the above changes will not change the format of the annotations.

Classification:

• Excel Tutorials