Comments

Introduction

Hello and welcome to our lesson about everything Comments related!

Comments are a very useful feature for collaboration, but you can use them solo as well. On a very basic level, this feature in Notion is quite similar to comments in other tools from the same space, such as Google Docs or Dropbox Paper. There are however, a few important quirks and tips about Notion Comments to keep in mind. Let’s dive in!

Inline

The first and most versatile way to add comments is to add them inline. By now, you’re very familiar with the editing menu that pops up when selecting a bit of text in a Notion block. Other than the usual text editing and styling features we’ve already covered extensively, we can also add a Comment to a specific bit of text in most text-based blocks.

Try selecting some text in a paragraph, then right clicking, and clicking “Comment”. This will open a small text window where you’ll be able to type your comment. There is no strict character limit to a comment — but, as you’ll notice, the comment window is pretty small by default, thus suggesting that comments should usually be shorter than longer. You can style the text in any comment by selecting and right-clicking as usual. There is no option to add Headings or any other blocks into the comment field.

You can, however, add attachments as well as use the @-mention menu (explained previously in Module 5) right within the comment field.

Once you’re finished with writing your comment, press the blue “up” arrow to add that comment to text previously selected. Specific pages may have inline comments disabled (see section on display settings below).

While adding inline comments by selecting text will only work in text-based blocks, we can also add comments to other blocks, such as images!

For those blocks, we’ll need to either; clicking the six-dot menu next to that block, or right click that block. Then, we’ll be able to add a comment to that whole block as well by selecting Comment from the context menu, or hitting Cmd/Ctrl + Shit + M, while the block is selected.

Page-level

Another way to add comments is to add them to a page in general. While inline comments require you to highlight a specific amount of text, page-level comments (like the name suggests) allow you to add a comment at the top of an entire page.

At the top of any Notion page, you’ll see a little “Add comment” button when you hover your mouse right above that page’s title. Clicking that button will open a text field similar to the previously discussed inline menu. Specific pages may have page-level comments disabled (see section on display settings below).

We can also add page-level comments to database pages by simply right-clicking on a database entry from any database view, and clicking Comment.

Changing comments display

We can change how both inline and page-level comments appear on all Notion pages. For standalone pages, these settings are per-page, and we can’t set a default (as in, we have to change these settings for each page individually). For database pages, we have to set these options to the same settings for all pages in a single database.

Inline comments will appear to the right of the selected text by default, but can be collapsed for an entire page by changing that page’s settings. For standalone pages, you’ll need to enter the top-right three-dot menu, then click Customize page, and set Inline Comments to Minimal. After that change, those comments will appear only after clicking on highlighted text. For database pages, this setting can be found in Page settings within the Customize Layout menu (otherwise known as the Layout Builder, extensively explained in Module 6).

Similarly, for page-level comments, we can disable them completely. For standalone pages, that option appears in that same top-right menu, within Customize Page, as “Page discussions”, which can be toggled on or off.

Browsing, editing, and resolving comments

The easiest way to browse comments on a page is to open the discussions menu. On all pages, that will appear as a little comment icon in the top-right of the page. Once you click that, you’ll see a little preview of all comments on a page. You can then click See all to open a whole panel that will open to the right of the page’s contents. This panel will display all comments and suggestions made on a specific page. You can filter them using the Filter button in the top right, as well as change your notification settings for that specific page. (Notifications will be explained in greater detail in our next lesson).

You can reply to inline comments (just click on a comment, and you’ll see a Reply button right below). This is useful for discussing specific points in a document with other people!

Every comment can be, of course, edited. To do that, click on the little three-dot menu that appears on the comment once you hover. From that menu, you can also mark a comment as unread, copy a link, or delete. Note that edited comments will be marked as such.

Comments can be resolved instead of being deleted – on hover, you’ll see a little checkmark icon appear next to any comment. Resolving comments will make them disappear from either the top-level page discussion section, or inline. However, they will still be viewable within the full discussions menu mentioned at the beginning of this section. You can also re-open a resolved comment from that panel. Resolving is recommended when a comment is no longer relevant, or a discussion is finalized.

What to use comments for?

While the obvious use for comments is when you’re collaborating with other people, I personally like to use comments even when I’m not collaborating on a page with other people.

I find comments great even for book notes, journal entries, scripts, and many other types of documents I usually work on myself. They’re a great way to add additional context, extra thoughts or reflections, without having to alter the main document’s structure. Think of them like little paper notes you stick on a book.

[Thomas to expand on his use of comments]