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How to change comment indicator color in Excel?

Author Xiaoyang Last modified

In Excel, after inserting a comment, a small red triangle indicator appears in the upper right corner of the cell. Many Excel users may wonder if the red indicator color can be changed to other colors they like. In this article, I will talk about a workaround to finish this task.

Change comment indicator color with VBA code

Change comment indicator color with VBA code

There is no direct way for us to change the color of the comment indicators quickly and easily, but, the following VBA code can help you to draw a triangular shape overlap each comment indicator with a specific color you need on the active sheet.

1. Activate your worksheet that you want to change the comment indicators color.

2. Hold down the ALT + F11 keys to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

3. Click Insert > Module, and paste the following code in the Module Window.

VBA code: Change comment indicator color in active sheet

Sub CoverCommentIndicator()
'Update 20141110
Dim pWs As Worksheet
Dim pComment As Comment
Dim pRng As Range
Dim pShape As Shape
Set pWs = Application.ActiveSheet
wShp = 6
hShp = 4
For Each pComment In pWs.Comments
  Set pRng = pComment.Parent
  Set pShape = pWs.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeRightTriangle, pRng.Offset(0, 1).Left - wShp, pRng.Top, wShp, hShp)
  With pShape
    .Flip msoFlipVertical
    .Flip msoFlipHorizontal
    .Fill.ForeColor.SchemeColor = 12
    .Fill.Visible = msoTrue
    .Fill.Solid
    .Line.Visible = msoFalse
  End With
Next
End Sub

4. After pasting the code, press F5 key to execute the code, and all the red triangle indicators are covered by the blue triangles as following screenshots shown:

a screenshot showing the original data
a screenshot of an arrow
a screenshot showing the comments with indicator color changed

Notes:

1. In the above code, you can change the blue color to your like by just changing the color index in the script .Fill.ForeColor.SchemeColor = 12.

2. The triangle shape you add by above VBA will be changed its size when you resize the cell.

3. If you want to remove all the colored triangle shapes immediately, the following VBA code will do you a fovor:

VBA code: Remove triangular shapes over the comment indicators

Sub RemoveIndicatorShapes()
'Update 20141110
Dim pWs As Worksheet
Dim pShape As Shape
Set pWs = Application.ActiveSheet
For Each pShape In pWs.Shapes
    If Not pShape.TopLeftCell.Comment Is Nothing Then
      If pShape.AutoShapeType = msoShapeRightTriangle Then
        pShape.Delete
      End If
    End If
Next
End Sub

Related articles:

How to highlight all cells with comments in Excel?

How to show or hide all comments and comment indicators in Excel?

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