Modern comments are on the way to PowerPoint, but you'll probably have to wait to use them

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What you need to know

  • Microsoft PowerPoint will soon support modern comments for business and enterprise users.
  • Modern comments allow you to anchor comments to text and objects.
  • The feature also brings improved @ mentions and the ability to mark comments as resolved.

Microsoft PowerPoint is gaining support for modern comments. The new feature makes it much easier to collaborate with people, and it supports anchoring comments to objects and text. It also brings improved @ mentions to the presentation app.

The ability to anchor comments to text or objects makes it much easier to follow along. Support for @ mentions also makes it much easier to notify people of a required change or comment. When a comment is responded to, you can mark it as resolved. This will hide the comment from the margins while keeping it available in the comment pane.

The feature, which was highlighted by OnMSFT, is marked as "In development" on the Microsoft 365 roadmap and is currently marked for a June release. Microsoft also has a support document about modern comments in PowerPoint that speaks about the feature in the present tense, so it may be available for some people already.

There are a few reasons that you may not see the new feature right now. It's only available for business and enterprise customers at the moment. It's also turned off by default for enterprise installations, admins have to turn it on. Support for consumer versions of PowerPoint is on the way, but Microsoft doesn't have a release date at this time.

Here's the complete description of the feature from the Microsoft 365 roadmap:

The new modern comments experience for PowerPoint is now available through your enterprise account. Modern comments greatly improves your comments experience with features such as resolving comments, anchoring comments to objects and text, improved @mentions, and more.

Microsoft also shows off the feature in a video from its support page.

Modern comments will be available on PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, Android, iOS, and the web.

Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com.