Java: Edit or Remove Comments in Excel

Comments in Excel are used to explain the contents in cells, or to offer reminders/notes to other users. Once a comment’s been added, Microsoft Excel allows users to show, hide, edit and delete the comments easily in a worksheet. This article will introduce how to edit existing comments as well as remove comments programmatically using Spire.XLS for Java.

Install Spire.XLS for Java

First of all, you're required to add the Spire.Xls.jar file as a dependency in your Java program. The JAR file can be downloaded from this link. If you use Maven, you can easily import the JAR file in your application by adding the following code to your project's pom.xml file.

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>com.e-iceblue</id>
        <name>e-iceblue</name>
        <url>https://repo.e-iceblue.com/nexus/content/groups/public/</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>e-iceblue</groupId>
        <artifactId>spire.xls</artifactId>
        <version>14.9.8</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>
    

Edit Comments in Excel

After adding comments to your Excel workbook, you may want to make changes to the added comments. The below table lists some of the core classes and methods used to get the existing comments and then set new text as well as formatting for the comments.

Name Description
ExcelCommentObject Class Represents a comment in an Excel document.
CellRange.getComment() Method Returns a comment object that represents a comment in a specific cell range.
ExcelCommentObject.setText() Method Sets the comment text.
ExcelCommentObject.setHeight() Method Sets height of a comment.
ExcelCommentObject.setWidth() Method Sets width of a comment.
ExcelCommentObject.setAutoSize() Method Sets whether the size of the specified object is changed automatically to fit text within its boundaries.

The following are steps to edit comments in Excel:

  • Java
import com.spire.xls.*;

public class ModifyComment {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        //Create a Workbook instance
        Workbook wb = new Workbook();
        
        //Load an Excel file
        wb.loadFromFile("Comments.xlsx");

        //Get the first worksheet
        Worksheet sheet = wb.getWorksheets().get(0);

        //Get comments in specific cells and set new comments
        sheet.getRange().get("A8").getComment().setText("Frank has left the company.");
        sheet.getRange().get("F6").getComment().setText("Best sales.");

        //Set the height and width of the new comments
        sheet.getRange().get("A8").getComment().setHeight(50);
        sheet.getRange().get("A8").getComment().setWidth(100);
        sheet.getRange().get("F6").getComment().setAutoSize(true);

        //Save to file.
        wb.saveToFile("ModifyComment.xlsx",ExcelVersion.Version2013);
        wb.dispose();
    }
}

Java: Edit or Remove Comments in Excel

Remove Comments in Excel

The following are steps to remove a comment in Excel:

  • Java
import com.spire.xls.*;

public class DeleteComment {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        
        //Create a Workbook instance
        Workbook wb = new Workbook();
        
        //Load an Excel file
        wb.loadFromFile("Comments.xlsx");

        //Get the first worksheet
        Worksheet sheet = wb.getWorksheets().get(0);

        //Get the comment in a specific cell and remove it
        sheet.getRange().get("F6").getComment().remove();

        //Save to file.
        wb.saveToFile("DeleteComment.xlsx", ExcelVersion.Version2013);
        wb.dispose();
    }
}

Java: Edit or Remove Comments in Excel

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