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Knowledge Base

XL97: Using NoteText and Comment.Text to Apply Comments

Article ID: 169767

Article Last Modified on 11/23/2006

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Excel 97 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q169767

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Excel 97, the NoteText method of a cell is limited to a maximum length of 255 characters. This article explains how to work around this limitation and some of the related problems that you may encounter when you work with cell comments.

MORE INFORMATION

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Working Around the 255 Character Limitation of the NoteText Method

Although the NoteText method of a cell is limited to a maximum of 255 characters, you can apply a comment that is up to 32,767 characters in length to a cell. To do this, use the Text method of a Comment object that is attached to the cell. For example, instead of the following code

ActiveCell.NoteText "This is a 1000 character comment."

use a line of code similar to the following:

ActiveCell.Comment.Text "This is a 1000 character comment."

Using the NoteText Method with Comments Longer Than 255 Characters

If you use the NoteText method to apply a comment that is longer than 255 characters in length to a cell, the new comment is not applied to the cell, and you do not receive an error message.

For example, if you run a macro with the following code

ActiveCell.NoteText String(256, "x")

and the active cell does not already contain a comment, no comment is added to the cell because the length of the new comment would exceed 255 characters.

If you run a macro with the following code

ActiveCell.NoteText ActiveCell.NoteText & String(100, "x")

and the length of the existing comment exceeds 155 characters, the comment is not updated because the length of the new comment would exceed 255 characters.

NOTE: In earlier versions of Microsoft Excel, the first 255 characters of text are applied to the comment; the remaining characters are truncated.

Using Comment.Text to Change the Comment Applied to a Cell

When you use Comment.Text to change the comment applied to a cell, the cell must already have a comment applied to it. If no comment was previously applied to the cell, you receive the following error message:

Run-time error '91': Object variable or With block variable not set

To apply a comment to a cell, use code similar to the following:

ActiveCell.AddComment

NOTE: If the active cell already has a comment applied to it, you receive the following error message when you run the code:

Run-time error '1004': Application-defined or object-defined error

To add a comment to a cell that may or may not contain a comment, use code similar to the following:

Sub AddACommentToTheActiveCell()

    ' The following line suppresses the run-time error message when
    ' adding a comment to a cell.
    On Error Resume Next

    ' Add a comment to the cell. If the cell already contains a comment,
    ' this line does nothing.
    ActiveCell.AddComment

    ' Return to normal error handling.
    On Error GoTo 0

    ' Add the text to the comment. If the cell already contains a
    ' comment, this is all you actually need.
    ActiveCell.Comment.Text "This is a comment."

End Sub

Using Comment.Text to Add New Text to an Existing Comment

If you want to add new text to an existing comment while preserving the original comment text, use a line of code similar to the following:

ActiveCell.Comment.Text ActiveCell.Comment.Text & "New Comment Text"

Characters over the 32,767 character limit for comments are truncated.

REFERENCES

For more information on using comments in Microsoft Excel 97, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

158246 XL97: How to Determine if the Active Cell Contains a Comment

160956 XL97: Sample Macro to Remove User Name from Comment

156200 XL97: Sounds Not Converted with Cell Notes

Additional query words: XL97 32767

Keywords: kbdtacode kberrmsg kbhowto KB169767

Microsoft KB Archive/169767

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