A couple noob questions about Comments in Numbers

[2024]

I'm just starting out with Numbers (Excel guy for 25 years), and have two quick questions re things I'm trying to figure out at the moment. This is in Sonoma 14.2.

1) Is there a way to make the yellow triangles that signify the presence of a comment any smaller? They always cover the rightmost character in the cell, making the entry hard to read.

2) Is there a way to copy and paste an existing comment from one cell to another (instead of having to create it over again)?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

 

[AlmightyKang]

I'm just starting out with Numbers (Excel guy for 25 years), and have two quick questions re things I'm trying to figure out at the moment. This is in Sonoma 14.2.

1) Is there a way to make the yellow triangles that signify the presence of a comment any smaller? They always cover the rightmost character in the cell, making the entry hard to read.

2) Is there a way to copy and paste an existing comment from one cell to another (instead of having to create it over again)?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

I use Numbers somewhat regularly. AFAIK no that's about it. You have to do these things manually.

It's nowhere near as powerful as Excel for reference. If you're an Excel person I'd stick with Excel.

 

[2024]

Thanks for your reply. Any idea if the size of the comment box can be increased? It's kinda small for what I use it for.

I'm really liking this new Mac, but yeah, Numbers is pretty basic compared to what I'm used to. I was half expecting this, and honestly I don't know if Excel for Mac would have all the same options as the Windows versions anyway, so for now I'll keep plugging away with Numbers to see how well I adapt to it. I'll probably have more questions eventually. Thanks again.

 

[GerritV]

Thanks for your reply. Any idea if the size of the comment box can be increased? It's kinda small for what I use it for.

No, you can't (***EDIT BELOW***)

I'm really liking this new Mac, but yeah, Numbers is pretty basic compared to what I'm used to. I was half expecting this, and honestly I don't know if Excel for Mac would have all the same options as the Windows versions anyway, so for now I'll keep plugging away with Numbers to see how well I adapt to it. I'll probably have more questions eventually. Thanks again.

If you rely on somewhat advanced formulas and/or functionalities in Excel, that aren't present in Numbers, you'll have no choice but to use Excel. The Mac version is said to differ from the Windows version, but I can't comment on that myself since I don't know the Windows version.

If you do basic to regular spreadsheet work with relatively simple formulas and/or functionalities, I would give Numbers a thorough test drive, already for the sake of the famous "Apple Eco System". In which case you should stop comparing it with Excel, that makes little to no sense IMHO.


***EDIT***

Sorry for having been a bit too quick on the trigger.
As soon as your comment exceeds the default size of the comment box, the option "Show More" appears in the bottom left corner. Clicking it will expand the comment box to show more content. Screenshots attached.
HTH

 

[AlmightyKang]

Thanks for your reply. Any idea if the size of the comment box can be increased? It's kinda small for what I use it for.

I'm really liking this new Mac, but yeah, Numbers is pretty basic compared to what I'm used to. I was half expecting this, and honestly I don't know if Excel for Mac would have all the same options as the Windows versions anyway, so for now I'll keep plugging away with Numbers to see how well I adapt to it. I'll probably have more questions eventually. Thanks again.

It's a perfectly good spreadsheet, just not as good as Excel. The key advantage for Numbers is that it works much much better on touch-oriented devices like the iPad.

 

[2024]

Thank you both for your thoughts. I was hoping to be able to expand the comments horizontally (I see I failed to mention that 😬) since I use them a lot for itemized lists, which doesn't work well when the lines wrap. Seems like I'll have to rethink this way of doing it.

I can't help but compare Numbers to Excel, because the latter is the one I know and have used for many years. I'm asking questions because I want to adapt my methods to Numbers, and I need to know more about what I can and can't do with it before even thinking about spending money on Office for Mac, which I don't want to buy if I don't have to.

I tested a few Excel spreadsheets on my iPad before buying the Mac, but I think I was so pleased to see they didn't look like scrambled eggs that I didn't get down into the weeds far enough to start noticing the little differences.

 

[robbinia]

I also was a long time Excel user who made the switch to Numbers a couple of years ago when I stopped working, and wanted to reduce software subscriptions, etc. It took me a while to get completely comfortable with Numbers but now it's second nature. Clearly Numbers does not have the more powerful features of Excel but it can do a lot.

As to your questions on comments:
1) I'm not aware that you can change the size the comment triangle marker, but you can change the colour (menu: view - comments - author colour) to make them easier to see/hide.
2) There are 2 ways I know to copy a comment to another cell:
- you can click into the comment box and select all the text (command A) and then Command C to copy, go to new cell and Add Comment, then Command V to paste the text into the new comment box.
- You can select the cell and copy/paste to a new cell - this will copy the cell contents/format/etc and the comment, then edit the new cell contents if needed. One thing I realised after a few of these is that selecting a cell and pressing delete/backspace to remove a cell's contents will also delete the comment (unlike in Excel). To keep the comment and remove the cell contents, you have to edit the cell contents (Option-Enter) and delete.

Hope this helps.

 

[theorist9]

honestly I don't know if Excel for Mac would have all the same options as the Windows versions anyway, so for now I'll keep plugging away with Numbers to see how well I adapt to it.

I use Excel on both Mac and PC. There are good reasons to use Numbers instead of Excel for Mac, but I wouldn't say the loss of features vs. Excel for Windows is one of them.

While there are a few upper-end features missing from the Mac version (summarized here: https://www.parallels.com/blogs/excel-mac-vs-excel-windows/ ), they represent only a tiny fraction of what Excel can do. I.e., their feature sets are nearly identical. Indeed, if you're concerned about losing functionality vs. Excel for Windows, you're much better off using Excel for Mac than Numbers.

[Excel for Mac also has a different UI from Excel for Windows, but I think you'd get used to the difference pretty quickly]

Instead, I'd say the key deficiency of the Mac version of Excel vs. its Windows counterpart is that Excel (like all Office programs) is much better optimized to run on Windows than MacOS. At least with my 2019 i9 Intel iMac, I experience delays (including spinning beachballs) with Excel for Mac that I would not encounter with an equivalently powerful Windows machine. [I can't speak to whether this remains an issue on Apple Silicon Macs, which are more powerul than my iMac.] By contrast, Numbers has obviously been optimized to run on MacOS, and thus should be more responsive than Excel. [I say "should be" because I've not used it myself.]

And of course the other reason to not get Office is the cost, as you mentioned.

 

[2024]

I also was a long time Excel user who made the switch to Numbers a couple of years ago when I stopped working, and wanted to reduce software subscriptions, etc. It took me a while to get completely comfortable with Numbers but now it's second nature. Clearly Numbers does not have the more powerful features of Excel but it can do a lot.

As to your questions on comments:
1) I'm not aware that you can change the size the comment triangle marker, but you can change the colour (menu: view - comments - author colour) to make them easier to see/hide.
2) There are 2 ways I know to copy a comment to another cell:
- you can click into the comment box and select all the text (command A) and then Command C to copy, go to new cell and Add Comment, then Command V to paste the text into the new comment box.
- You can select the cell and copy/paste to a new cell - this will copy the cell contents/format/etc and the comment, then edit the new cell contents if needed. One thing I realised after a few of these is that selecting a cell and pressing delete/backspace to remove a cell's contents will also delete the comment (unlike in Excel). To keep the comment and remove the cell contents, you have to edit the cell contents (Option-Enter) and delete.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, and sorry for not being able to reply sooner. Yes, I discovered that I can hide the comments, though unfortunately there seems to be no keyboard shortcut for it.

I also thought maybe I could indent the cell contents from the right (using Format > Text > Increase/Decrease Indent Level) so I can see the rightmost character better, but that seems to merge an adjacent cell with the selected one. Not sure why that's called an indent.

The idea of changing the color of the triangle is interesting. That would allow me to easily differentiate the comments that are informational and static from those that need to be frequently edited. Thanks for mentioning that.

 

[2024]

I use Excel on both Mac and PC. There are good reasons to use Numbers instead of Excel for Mac, but I wouldn't say the loss of features vs. Excel for Windows is one of them.

While there are a few upper-end features missing from the Mac version (summarized here: https://www.parallels.com/blogs/excel-mac-vs-excel-windows/ ), they represent only a tiny fraction of what Excel can do. I.e., their feature sets are nearly identical. Indeed, if you're concerned about losing functionality vs. Excel for Windows, you're much better off using Excel for Mac than Numbers.

[Excel for Mac also has a different UI from Excel for Windows, but I think you'd get used to the difference pretty quickly]

Instead, I'd say the key deficiency of the Mac version of Excel vs. its Windows counterpart is that Excel (like all Office programs) is much better optimized to run on Windows than MacOS. At least with my 2019 i9 Intel iMac, I experience delays (including spinning beachballs) with Excel for Mac that I would not encounter with an equivalently powerful Windows machine. [I can't speak to whether this remains an issue on Apple Silicon Macs, which are more powerul than my iMac.] By contrast, Numbers has obviously been optimized to run on MacOS, and thus should be more responsive than Excel. [I say "should be" because I've not used it myself.]

And of course the other reason to not get Office is the cost, as you mentioned.

Thanks for the interesting comparison. It sounds like what's missing from Excel for macOS is also missing from the old Excel 2003 that I've been using, so it probably wouldn't matter to me. Just out of curiosity, what version of Excel for Mac do you use?

 

[theorist9]

Thanks for the interesting comparison. It sounds like what's missing from Excel for macOS is also missing from the old Excel 2003 that I've been using, so it probably wouldn't matter to me. Just out of curiosity, what version of Excel for Mac do you use?

I have a subscription to Office 365 though my university, so my Excel is continuously updated by Microsoft, and thus I'm on the latest stable release: v. 16.83.

If you do get the current version of Excel for Mac, you should notice numerous new formulas vs. your 2003 version, as well as dynamic arrays (introduced 2018) and What-If analysis (introduced 2010; it's essentially a numerical equation solver).