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Comments and Notes
4:14Comments and notes let you add additional information and detail to help others understand the data, assumptions and calculations in a spreadsheet.
The comment functionality
in sheets is robust.
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The way we make a comment is we click on
the cell where we wanna make a comment,
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and we go up to Insert,
and select Comment.
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Note there's also a keyboard shortcut for
this.
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And this box pops up.
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I can say,
this is an example comment to myself.
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And there we go.
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Now I click somewhere else and
the comment disappears.
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And I go over here, now if I mouse
over the cell with the comment in it,
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it will pop up again.
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You can see that there are comments in
cells because of this yellow-ish orange
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triangle here at the top of the cell.
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So I scroll over the cell with the comment
in it, and I can reply to this comment.
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I can also tag colleagues and
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they'll get notified via email
that they've been tagged.
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So I could say @Rich.
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And there, his email pops up.
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And this is just a test, ignore.
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At your own peril [LAUGH].
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And there we go.
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Now, another thing is if I'd actually
been asking to do something in this
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spreadsheet, or answer a question,
I could do that there.
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And then when it's been resolved,
then the comment goes away.
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And you can see the history of all
the comments by just going back up here.
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Comments are great for collaboration
as they can speed up the exchange of
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information and
identify where action is required.
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We generally use notes
differently than comments.
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You can use notes to explain
what certain cells mean or
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why you set something up or also the
source of an assumption that's being made.
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Here we are in our retail budget
example back on the Input tab.
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I'm gonna scroll down to the Expense
Assumptions section and focus on row 26.
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The rent is going up every year, which we
know why it is, but to other people who
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are using the spreadsheet, they might
not know and that might look weird.
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So, I'm going to insert
a note to give context.
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Lease agreement requires 10%
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increase in year 1 rent.
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So now, someone who might
wonder what's going on there
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can scroll over the cell and see the
comment that explains why it's going up.
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What about on the revenue side?
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$25 for the hats.
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What and how did we arrive at that price?
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Well, it might be because we know it
costs us $10 to make the hats and
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we're gonna mark them up by $15.
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So instead of just putting $25, we've
actually entered in that information into
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the formula, but
it's still not immediately obvious.
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Another way to do this is we could
say okay, it's gonna be $10 + 15.
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And here because we're referencing
the cell, people can see, okay,
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well the cost is $10 and we're adding
$15 on the cost, which is fine.
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But just for the example's sake.
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We'll insert a note.
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$10 cost plus $15 markup.
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Now it's certainly best practice
when you're inserting notes to also
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say who put it, with initials.
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You could spell out your full name.
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Everyone around here calls me Watson,
so I'll just write Watson.
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Also note that you can adjust
the size of the comment box.
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The difference between comments and
notes is subtle, and in some cases,
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doesn't really matter.
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Indeed, lots of spreadsheet
software doesn't have the common
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functionality that Sheets has and
are really just notes.
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Keep that in mind because they can help
clarify things in your spreadsheets,
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particularly when you're
collaborating with other users.
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