Skip to main content

How to change the author name for comment in Word

This article is talking about changing the default author name for comments, or changing the existing author name in a document to a new one. Please try the below two methods.

Change the comments' author name for future use

Change the existing comments' author name of a document


Change the comments' author name for future use

If you want to change the comment’s author name for future use, please change the User Name in Word Options window.

1. In an opened Word document, click File > Options. In the Word Options window, make sure you are locating in the General tab, change the name in the User name box as below screenshot shown, and finally click the OK button.

Now you have changed the default user name for comments in Word document.


Change the existing comments' author name of a document

If you have received a document with lots of comments, and you want to change all comments' author names to a certain one, the following VBA code will do you a favor.

1. Select the range contains comments or select the whole document you will change the author names by pressing the Ctrl + A keys, press the Alt + F11 keys to open the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. In the opening Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window, click Insert > Module. Then copy below VBA code into the Module window.

VBA code: Change the existing comments' author name of document

Sub ChangeCommentAuthor()
'Updated by EntendOffice 20181112
    Dim I As Long
    Dim xNewName As String
    Dim xShortName As String
    If Selection.Comments.Count = 0 Then
        MsgBox "No comments in your selection!", vbInformation, "KuTools for Word"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    xNewName = InputBox("New author name?", "KuTools for Word")
    xShortName = InputBox("New author initials?", "KuTools for Word")
    If xNewName = "" Or xShortName = "" Then
        MsgBox "The author name/initials can’t be empty.", vbInformation, "Kutools for Word"
        Exit Sub
    End If
    With Selection
        For I = 1 To .Comments.Count
            .Comments(I).Author = xNewName
            .Comments(I).Initial = xShortName
        Next I
    End With
End Sub

3. Press the F5 key to run the code. In the opening Comments Author Name dialog box, enter the new author name into the textbox and click the OK button.

4. In the next opening Comments initials dialog box, enter the initials as you need and click the OK button.

Then all comments’ author names in selected range are changed to the specified one immediately as below screenshot shown.

Best Office Productivity Tools

Kutools for Word - Elevate Your Word Experience with Over 100 Remarkable Features!

🤖 Kutools AI Assistant: Transform your writing with AI - Generate Content  /  Rewrite Text  /  Summarize Documents  /  Inquire for Information based on Document, all within Word

📘 Document Mastery: Split Pages  /  Merge Documents  /  Export Selection in Various Formats (PDF/TXT/DOC/HTML...)  /  Batch Convert to PDF  /  Export Pages as Images  /  Print Multiple Files at once...

Contents Editing: Batch Find and Replace across Multiple Files  /  Resize All Pictures  /  Transpose Table Rows and Columns  /  Convert Table to Text...

🧹 Effortless Clean: Sweap away Extra Spaces  /  Section Breaks  /  All Headers  /  Text Boxes  /  Hyperlinks  /  For more removing tools, head to our Remove Group...

Creative Inserts: Insert Thousand Separators  /  Check Boxes  /  Radio Buttons  /  QR Code  /  Barcode  /  Diagonal Line Table  /  Equation Caption  /  Image Caption  /  Table Caption  /  Multiple Pictures  /  Discover more in the Insert Group...

🔍 Precision Selections: Pinpoint specific pages  /  tables  /  shapes  /  heading paragraphs  /  Enhance navigation with more Select features...

Star Enhancements: Navigate swiftly to any location  /  auto-insert repetitive text  /  seamlessly toggle between document windows  /  11 Conversion Tools...

👉 Want to try these features? Kutools for Word offers a 60-day free trial, with no limitations! 🚀
Free Download     Read More     Buy Now
 
Comments (32)
Rated 5 out of 5 · 1 ratings
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Hi, thanks for this guide. However I'm stuck at the module step. What do you mean with pressing F5 keys? Can you show me? Thank you
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Hi Carla,

After adding the VBA code, stay in the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window and press the F5 key on your keyboard to run the code.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Fantastic - many thanks!!!
Rated 5 out of 5
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Thank you, is there a solution to change the picture of the author in the comments into an anonymous one?
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Hi Niccolo,
Sorry can't help you with this problem.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Cool thanks!
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Boas. No meu caso funcionou muito bem com os "comentarios", mas não alterou o nome de quem fez as "alterações" ao texto. Alguém consegue efectuar a alteração do autor para todos os tipos de marcações: comentarios, alterações, formatação...
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Microsoft ist schon ein Schrott. Je neuer die Versionen sind, umso weniger findet man die Lösung. Wo ändere ich schlichtweg den Autor grundsätzlich. Bei mir wird nichts geändert und ich suche seit über 2 Stunden... einfach nur Schrott das UX von Microschrott
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Excellent information in this post and also in the comments. Thank you everyone.
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Great, worked very well ... thanks
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
FOR THOSE WHO WANNA CHANGE AUTHORS ONLY OF CERTAIN COMMENTSOpen your doc with an archiver (e.g. ZIP), go to word folder, find comments.xml file, extract, open with notepad, edit accordingly (ctrl+H to find and change current author and initials to the ones you desire), save, get the file back to word folder in the zip, et voila
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Cette astuce ne fonctionne pas avec toutes les versions d'office
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site
Bonjour
Cette macro fonctionne bien, mais pour anonymiser l'auteur des corrections dans un texte, il faudrait, en plus de l'auteur des commentaires, pouvoir changer le nom au niveau de marques de révision, et tel n'est pas le cas.
Auriez-vous une solution?
Merci d'avance.
There are no comments posted here yet
Load More
Please leave your comments in English
Posting as Guest
×
Rate this post:
0   Characters
Suggested Locations