Google Drive and Docs Tips

Click for larger image and screenshots

See all Comments in a Google Doc - even resolved ones

Click on the "Comments" button at the top of a Google Doc to see all comments and discussions that have taken place in a document or presentation.

Comments and discussions work best in a document when they are tagged to a word or sentence and appear on the right side of the document. But you can see all document discussions in a list by clicking on the "Comments" button at the top of your document and selecting "Show comment stream" - you can also set how you are notified when collaborators post a comment.

Tip Update: Now just clicking on the Comments button opens up a summary of all comments, and you can click on the Notifications settings link in the top right to set your notifications.

This is really useful if a discussion has been "resolved" but you want to check the comment stream, or even re-open a debate.

Comments/Feedback

Marko Petrik

Hi, this new setup collates all the comments into the drop-down menu. This is really problematic, as they are now out of context. Is there a way of returning the comments to their original position floating in-line with their original text? It makes it extremely laborious to locate the area in the body of the text that required a comment.

09 May at 08:24 • Reply to this comment • Edit

Mark Williams From the comments box, click on "reopen comment" - that puts the comment back to it's original place in the document.

09 May at 09:11 • Edit

Marko Petrik thanks for getting back to me, Mark :) I think what happened is that the text the comments linked to was deleted, but the comments remained in the drop down. Thanks for the help!

09 May at 09:34 • Edit

Michael Schaef

This option is no longer on the comments button. This is useless.

03 March at 19:21 • Reply to this comment • Edit

Mark Williams Thanks for the update, Michael. We've amended the tip.

04 March at 10:17 • Edit