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windsurferLA - 07 Oct 2007 19:13 GMT

I'm using Excel97 under WinXP-pro. (I know it is old, but it does most
everything I want.)

When I go to add a comment to a cell, the first row of the comment box
displays my name probably as a result of my selecting the option when I
installed the software years ago. I tried eliminating my name as the
named user in the tools|options|general, but my names keeps reappearing.

Is there anyway to prevent it from inserting my name in the comment box
short of deleting each time I open a new comment box?

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Ian - 07 Oct 2007 19:56 GMT

Probably not. I just tried (in Excel 2002) deleting my name from the
Username field in Options. I dropped out of Options and when I went back in,
it had my first name there. When I installed Office I put my full name in as
the username (which normally appears in comment boxes), but my Windows user
account is just my first name, so I assume that's where is get's it from. I
tried putting a space in the Username, but still get the colon in the
comment box. There alos doesn't seem to be a way of disabling the automatic
selection of bold type in comments.

Perhaps someone could come up with a macro to automatically delete the name
on creation of a comment, but I wouldn't know where to start with that.

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Ian
--

> I'm using Excel97 under WinXP-pro. (I know it is old, but it does most
> everything I want.)
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Is there anyway to prevent it from inserting my name in the comment box
> short of deleting each time I open a new comment box?

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Dave Peterson - 07 Oct 2007 20:18 GMT

Check out Debra Dalgleish's site for some work-arounds:
http://contextures.com/xlcomments03.html#Name
and
http://contextures.com/xlcomments03.html#Plain

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Dave Peterson

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windsurferLA - 08 Oct 2007 19:45 GMT

Building on your suggested approach, I created code to insert current
date as a new Comment is entered in Excel'97 worksheet. Seems to work
great. Thanks again.

Sub CommentDating()
'insert current date at beginning of each new comment.
Dim strDate As String
strDate = Now()
strDate = Left(strDate, 8)
Application.UserName = strDate
End Sub

It is combined with auto_close macro to reset things.

Sub auto_close()
Application.UserName = "user"
Beep
Beep
Beep
End Sub

WindsurferLA

> Check out Debra Dalgleish's site for some work-arounds:
> http://contextures.com/xlcomments03.html#Name
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>> Is there anyway to prevent it from inserting my name in the comment box
>> short of deleting each time I open a new comment box?

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windsurferLA - 08 Oct 2007 19:59 GMT

Question... Using auto_close() I can reset the user name to my user name
with

Sub auto_close()
Application.UserName = "my user name"
End Sub

But when worksheet is opened on another machine by someone else, it
resets the UserName to "my user name" and not their user name.

Is there a simpler way (in Excel'97) to get around this problem other
than saving their user name to a spread sheet with Auto_Open() and then
retrieving their user name with Auto_Close()?

WindsurferLA

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Dave Peterson - 08 Oct 2007 21:21 GMT

You can store the username when the workbook opens in a variable that remembers
it. And then when you close the workbook, you can change it back to that
variable.

Option Explicit
Dim myUserName As String
Sub Auto_Open()
myUserName = Application.UserName
Application.UserName = Format(Date, "mm/dd/yy")
End Sub
Sub Auto_Close()
Application.UserName = myUserName
End Sub

In fact, for me (xl2003 and winXP Home), I could use this:

Option Explicit
Sub Auto_Open()
Application.UserName = Format(Date, "mm/dd/yy")
End Sub
Sub Auto_Close()
Application.UserName = ""
End Sub

When I set the application.username to "", the windows logon name was used--I
think!

My windows logon name and application.username are the same, so I couldn't tell
for sure.

You may want to test it a bit.

> Question... Using auto_close() I can reset the user name to my user name
> with
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
> >> Is there anyway to prevent it from inserting my name in the comment box
> >> short of deleting each time I open a new comment box?

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Dave Peterson

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windsurferLA - 09 Oct 2007 04:35 GMT

Thanks for help. F.Y.I.
On my WinXP machine running Excel'97,
Application.UserName = "" 'leaves the field blank.

WindsurferLA

> You can store the username when the workbook opens in a variable that remembers
> it. And then when you close the workbook, you can change it back to that
[quoted text clipped - 58 lines]
>>>> Is there anyway to prevent it from inserting my name in the comment box
>>>> short of deleting each time I open a new comment box?

Reply to this Message

Dave Peterson - 09 Oct 2007 15:06 GMT

Thanks for posting back.

> Thanks for help. F.Y.I.
> On my WinXP machine running Excel'97,
[quoted text clipped - 64 lines]
> >>>> Is there anyway to prevent it from inserting my name in the comment box
> >>>> short of deleting each time I open a new comment box?

Signature

Dave Peterson

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windsurferLA - 08 Oct 2007 18:03 GMT

Thank you Ian and Dave for prompt reply. Implementing one of the macros
suggested by Dave should solve my problem. I had not considered using a
macro to modify a comment box.

and special thanks to Dave to alerting me to the contextures.com web
site as it looks like it has lots of helpful information.

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