Are you wondering how to show all notes in Excel? To unlock all the secrets of Microsoft Excel worksheet notes, keep reading!

Managing notes in Excel can feel like dealing with scattered sticky notes on a busy desk—I know how overwhelming it can get. I’ve faced the same frustration of viewing all my notes simultaneously while managing spreadsheets, especially with larger datasets.

Luckily, there are multiple ways to simplify this task, and I’m here to walk you through those. In this tutorial, I’ll share a few easy methods to help you display all notes in Excel efficiently.

Let’s streamline this process and boost productivity together. Ready to learn? Let’s jump into the steps ahead!

Using the Excel Options Tool

The Excel Options dialog box allows you to do a lot of tweaking on how it indicates or shows notes. The default setting for Excel worksheet notes is that the tool only shows a sign on the cell containing a note. It’s a tiny red triangle in the top right corner.

So, you can hover over a cell to visualize the note, if it has any, go to the next cell, and so on. However, another advanced setting of the Options tool allows you to view all the notes as floating shapes.

To use this feature, navigate to your worksheet and press Alt + F + T to launch the Excel Options dialog box.

Now, select the Advanced menu in the left side panel and scroll down to the Display section on the right.

Click on the Indicators and notes, comments on hover option below the For cells with comments, show: section.

Hit OK to save the setting.

You’ll now see all the notes on your Excel worksheet. To properly indicate the originating cells for each note there will be connecting arrows.

If there are many notes, your worksheet might become cluttered, not to mention the original dataset might get buried below those floating objects.

To fix this, you can click on a note and drag it away from the main dataset.

Repeat this for the rest of the notes to organize those thoughtfully and save the workbook.

Excel will preserve this structure and reproduce it the next time you open your Excel file and view all notes.

Using the Show All Notes Command

Another quick way to view all the worksheet notes in one click is the Show All Notes command in the Review tab.

When on the source worksheet, click on the Review tab in the Excel ribbon menu.

Find the Notes block and click on the Notes drop-down menu.

Select the Show All Notes option from the context menu.

You’ll see all the notes in your spreadsheet.

To hide the notes you can’t use the Excel undo feature, the Ctrl + Z keyboard combination.

You’ll need to go back to the Notes block in the Review tab and disable the Show All Notes command to hide notes.

Using the Selection Pane Command

The Selection Pane tool allows you to bring up a right-side navigation panel to manage comments and notes in an Excel spreadsheet.

If there are any notes in your worksheet, this tool will list the notes in the order they were added, and show a few controls for note management.

To try this approach to view all notes, navigate to the Page Layout tab.

Find the Arrange block and click on the Select Pane command.

A navigation panel will appear on the right side.

Click on the Show All button to view all the notes.

Excel will visualize all the notes currently present in your worksheet.

To reverse this, simply click Hide All.

Using the Page Setup Dialog Box

The default Excel worksheet print settings don’t allow it to show and print notes. However, you can use the Page Setup tool to view and print all the worksheet notes.

Open an Excel worksheet that has a few notes. Navigate to the Page Layout tab and click on the Page Setup tool extension icon. It’s the diagonal arrow in the bottom-right corner of the Page Setup block.

The Page Setup dialog box will show up.

Navigate to the Sheet tab and click on the Comments and notes drop-down menu. Select the At end of sheet option.

Click OK to save the changes you’ve made.

Press Ctrl + P to access the Print Preview mode.

Scroll down to the bottom of the preview screen to see how all of the notes will be printed.

Another option to choose from the Comments and notes drop-down menu is the As displayed on sheet (notes only).

Click OK to save.

Use the Selection Pane command to bring up the Selection panel and hit the Show All button to view all notes.

Press Ctrl + P to access the Excel Print Preview tool.

You should be able to see the floating notes on the dataset as exactly displayed in the worksheet view.

Using Excel VBA

If you frequently need to unhid notes in one or more worksheets, you can automate the process using simple Excel VBA macros. You can quickly learn how to set up a macro from a VBA script by going through this quick Microsoft Excel tutorial:

📒 Read More: How To Use The VBA Code You Find Online

Find below different ways to visualize all notes using Excel VBA macros:

Show All Notes as Floating Objects

The following script will show all notes as shape objects with linking arrows as you’ve seen previously in this article.

Sub ShowAllNotesShapes()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    Dim cmt As Comment
    
    ' Set the worksheet to the active sheet
    Set ws = ActiveSheet
    
    ' Loop through each comment in the sheet and make them visible
    For Each cmt In ws.Comments
        cmt.Visible = True
    Next cmt
    
    MsgBox "All notes in the active sheet are now visible.", vbInformation, "Show All Notes"
End Sub

After creating the macro, press Alt + F8 to launch the Macro dialog box.

Select the ShowAllNotesShapes macro and hit Run.

Excel should visualize all the notes on the active worksheet.

Show All Notes in a Dialog Box

Contrary to the first script, this one will show all notes in a clutterless way. You’ll get a dialog box showing the note content rather than the shape objects.

Sub ShowAllNotesDialog()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    Dim cmt As Comment
    Dim notes As String
    Dim cell As Range
    
    ' Set the worksheet to the active sheet
    Set ws = ActiveSheet
    
    ' Initialize the notes variable
    notes = "Notes in sheet: " & ws.Name & vbCrLf & vbCrLf
    
    ' Loop through each comment in the sheet
    For Each cmt In ws.Comments
        Set cell = cmt.Parent
        notes = notes & "Cell " & cell.Address & ": " & cmt.Text & vbCrLf & vbCrLf
    Next cmt
    
    ' Display the notes
    If notes = "Notes in sheet: " & ws.Name & vbCrLf & vbCrLf Then
        notes = "No notes found in the active sheet."
    End If
    
    MsgBox notes, vbInformation, "Notes"
End Sub

Bring up the Macro window, select ShowAllNotesDialog, and click on the Run button.

Excel will create and show a text dialog box outlining all the notes in the order they were added.

Conclusions

Now that you know how to show all notes in Excel, you should be able to visualize all those notes in your worksheets or workbooks that the collaborators have left for you.

Use any method outlined above depending on how frequently you use this Excel skill and your expertise in this tool.

Did the guide help you learn a cool Excel skill today? Do you know of a better method than the ones shown in this guide? Share your thoughts by replying in the comment box.