Word 2007: how to print comments in separate document?

Topic

New Reply

I have been tasked with extracting the comments in a document into a separate, free-standing Word document. Is there any easy way, other than a manual cut’n’paste of each comment, to do that?
Thanks in advance,
Georgette

Reply | Quote

Replies

An easy way to see this is to print the markup (to a PDF if you need a file). In the Print view Settings area, change “Print All Pages” to “List of Markup”.

A harder way is to use a macro that iterates through the comments and adds them to a new document. A good example which puts the comments and other associated metadata into an Excel table is located here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2741241/microsoft-word-macro-exporting-word-review-comments-how-do-you-reference-the

Reply | Quote

I tried the macro but cannot seem to get it to work. Will try to find someone in-house to look at where the code is hanging up.
I did try a workaround method that involves printing the markup using the Adobe PDF print driver (I think you need Adoble Professional to have this capability) and then opening the PDF & saving as a Word .doc file. It gave me all the information I needed, but still had to be formated in a tabular fashion.
Thanks for your input. Georgette

Reply | Quote

I got the code that your provided in your link to work!!! I did not notice the note at the beginning of the macro that I had to turn on the Excel Library in Tools for the macro to be functional. Once that was done, it worked like a charm!

New question: how do I share this macro with others? Currently it is housed in a global template called gg-normal.dotm located in my STARTUP folder.

Thanks again for providing the code link,
Georgette

Reply | Quote

Well the global template is one way of distributing the macro. Another is to add it to a document template or even into Normal.dotm.

The best way depends on many factors such as:
– How many users need this
– What type of documents need the macro
– What is your network configuration (eg workgroup template folder shared across network)

Reply | Quote

Thanks Andrew. Ideally I would like the macro available to anyone who needs the Word comment–>Excel matrix functionality.

Putting it into a document template would limit its use, as we may want to capture comments from client documents for which we do not have the backing template.

I hesitate to put it into normal.dotm because some folks may have already customized their normal; also, if the normal template corrupts, it may be deleted.

Adding the macro to a global template and then distributing seems like the safest way, but I must investigate our network rules about sharing global templates containing macros. I tried saving MY global template with a new name and sharing it with a co-worker, but the macro did not show up in the macro list. Ultimately I took the code text (in Word) to his laptop, created a global template on his laptop, and added the macro; only then did it function correctly. There has to be an easier way.

Reply | Quote

Andrew, thank you SO MUCH for the link to the code to extract Word 2007 comments to an Excel spreadsheet. With a little reading I was able to make it work!! Here are the steps I followed which got around all of the gotchas (I think):
Make a GENERIC_normal.dotm file based on a new, untouched Normal.dotm
Put GENERIC_normal.dotm into my STARTUP file for Word
Open GENERIC_normal.dotm (not a document based on this template)
From Developer tab, choose Visual Basic, and add a module named CopyCommentsToExcel
Cut and paste the code for the macro provided in your link into the module’s code-writing area
In Tools, References, turn on the Microsoft Excel 12.0 Object library
Save the macro
Save GENERIC_normal.dotm
When you open any document, check in the Developer tab, Document templates. GENERIC_normal.dotm should be available as a checked, global template.
To run the macro, on the Developer tab, choose Macros, choose CopyCommentsToExcel, and Run
It is slick!!! Again, thanks.

Reply | Quote