How to Print Word Documents Without Comments: A Simple Guide

Microsoft Word is a powerful tool, packed with features, but many users are unaware of its full capabilities. If you’ve ever needed to share a document with comments internally but present a clean, comment-free version externally, you’ll be relieved to know Word offers a straightforward solution. This guide will show you exactly how to Word Print Without Comments, ensuring your printed documents are free from annotations. We’ll cover different versions of Word and even touch upon how to achieve this in PDFs.

Steps to Print Word Documents Without Comments

Word provides a couple of easy methods to prevent comments from appearing in your printed documents. Here’s how to do it in different versions of Microsoft Word.

Printing Without Comments in Modern Word Versions (Microsoft 365, Word 2016 & Later)

These steps are applicable for recent versions of Microsoft Word, including Microsoft 365 and Word 2016 and newer.

Open Your Word Document: Begin by opening the Word document you wish to print.
Navigate to the “Review” Tab: In the Word ribbon at the top, click on the “Review” tab.
Find the “Tracking” Group and “Show Markup”: Within the “Review” tab, locate the “Tracking” group. In this group, you’ll see the “Show Markup” option. Click on the dropdown arrow next to “Show Markup”.
Clear the “Comments” Checkbox: A dropdown menu will appear listing various markup options. Ensure that the checkbox next to “Comments” is unchecked (cleared). This action hides the comments within your document view and, crucially, will prevent them from printing.

Clearing the comments checkbox in Word's Show Markup menu to print word without comments

Alternatively, you can adjust print settings directly:

Go to the “File” Tab and Click “Print”: Click on the “File” tab in the top left corner of Word, and then select “Print” from the menu.
Access Print Settings: In the Print settings pane, look for the “Settings” section. It’s usually located under the printer selection. The default setting often displays “Print All Pages”.
Click the Dropdown Next to “Print All Pages”: Click on the dropdown arrow next to the “Print All Pages” option (or a similar setting reflecting current print options).
Choose “Print Markup” Option: From the dropdown menu, find and click on “Print Markup”. Clicking this option will toggle between printing with markups (including comments) and printing only the document content. To print without comments, ensure that “Document” is selected instead of “Document showing markup” or “Print Markup.” In some versions, it might directly show options like “Document” or “Document showing markup”. Select “Document”.

Selecting the 'Document' option in Print Settings to print word document without comments

Printing Without Comments in Word 2007

If you are using Word 2007, the process is slightly different but still straightforward:

Go to the “Review” Tab: Navigate to the “Review” tab on the Word 2007 ribbon.
Click “Show Markup” in the “Tracking” Group: Similar to newer versions, locate the “Tracking” group and click on “Show Markup.”
Clear the “Comment” Checkbox: Uncheck the “Comment” checkbox in the “Show Markup” dropdown menu to hide comments from view and printing.
Click “Print” and Change “Print What” Setting: Click the “Print” button (either through the Office Button and then “Print” or the quick access toolbar if you have it there). In the Print dialog box, find the “Print what” dropdown box. Change this setting from “Document showing markup” (or similar) to simply “Document.”
Click “OK” to Print: Finally, click “OK” to initiate the printing process. Your document will be printed without any comments.

Changing the 'Print What' box to 'Document' in Word 2007 to learn how to print word document without comments

By following these steps for your specific version of Word, you can easily achieve a word print without comments, giving you clean and professional-looking printed documents.

The Enduring Advantages of PDF Format

While printing from Word is essential, it’s worth briefly highlighting the advantages of the PDF (Portable Document Format). PDF has become a global standard for document sharing for good reason. From individuals to large corporations and government agencies, PDFs are ubiquitous. You’ll encounter them everywhere from contracts and invoices in business to tax forms and official information from government bodies.

One key reason for PDF’s popularity is its security. PDFs can be encrypted to restrict access to authorized individuals only. Beyond access control, security features can prevent unauthorized printing, editing, modification, and duplication. Password protection ensures that only those with the correct password can open and interact with the document. This security is why PDFs are frequently used for sensitive legal documents, as any edits leave a digital footprint.

Universality is another major benefit. PDFs are designed to be platform-independent, meaning they look the same and function correctly regardless of the operating system, device, or software used to view them. Furthermore, PDFs can compress large documents into smaller file sizes without sacrificing document quality, making them ideal for sharing large files efficiently and saving storage space.

Although you can easily word print without comments as shown above, managing comments and markups within PDFs, or printing PDFs without comments, often requires a dedicated PDF editor. A PDF editor provides a comprehensive suite of tools to manipulate PDF documents, including editing, creating, converting, and annotating.

Wondershare PDFelement – PDF Editor is a leading PDF editor that offers a complete PDF solution. It enables users to edit PDFs as easily as Word documents, create industry-standard PDFs from scratch, and convert PDFs to and from various formats like Word, Excel, HTML, and more. PDFelement includes robust features such as password protection, annotation tools, redaction capabilities, and digital signature support. It’s a powerful and user-friendly alternative to more expensive options.

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Annotating a PDF document with comments using a PDF editor

Printing PDFs Without Comments

If you need to print a PDF document without comments, here’s a general guide, often applicable in PDF editors like PDFelement:

Step 1. Open Your PDF in a PDF Editor

Launch PDFelement (or your preferred PDF editor) and open the PDF document you need to print. Usually, you can do this by clicking an “Open” or “Add” button within the application.

Opening a PDF document in PDFelement to prepare for printing docs without comments

Step 2. Access Print Settings and Choose Comment Options

Navigate to the “Print” function, usually found under the “File” menu or through a printer icon shortcut. In the Print dialog box, look for a section related to “Comments” or “Annotations.” PDF editors typically offer options to control whether comments are printed.

Select the option to not print comments or annotations. The exact wording may vary depending on your PDF editor (e.g., “Document,” “Document and Markups,” “Document only”). Choose the option that explicitly excludes comments or markups.

Selecting print settings in PDFelement to print docx without comments, choosing to exclude comments

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By following these instructions, whether you’re working with Word documents or PDFs, you can confidently word print without comments and ensure your printed output is clean and focused on the core content.