How to Prevent Word from Printing Comments

A print settings choice — here’s exactly where to turn it off

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Word printing comments alongside your document — either as balloons in the margin or as a separate comments page at the end — is one of those behaviors that catches people off guard.

You send a document to the printer and it comes back with all your tracked changes and reviewer notes visible.

Turning this off is a single setting in the print dialog, but knowing exactly where to look saves the frustration of hunting through menus.

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The Quick Fix: Change the Print What Setting

This is the setting that controls whether comments print. When Word is set to print the document showing markup, comments and tracked changes appear in the output. Changing it to print the final document removes all of that.

Go to File → Print. In the print settings panel, look for a dropdown that says Print All Pages or shows the current document view. Click it.

In the dropdown menu that appears, look for Print Markup — it will have a checkmark next to it if markup is currently set to print. Click Print Markup to uncheck it.

With Print Markup unchecked, Word prints the final version of the document without comments, tracked changes, or any other markup visible. The comments remain in the document — they just don’t appear in the printed output.

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If You Don’t See Print Markup in the Dropdown

The exact menu layout varies slightly between Word versions. In some versions the option appears differently.

In the same File → Print dropdown, look for options like:

Document — prints the document without markup.

Document Showing Markup — prints with comments and tracked changes visible. If this is currently selected, switch it to Document.

List of Markup — prints a separate page listing all comments and changes. Deselect this if it’s checked.

Select Document from the list to print the clean final version without any markup.

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Change the Default So It Doesn’t Keep Happening

If Word keeps defaulting back to printing with markup, you can change the default print setting so it always prints the final document without comments unless you specifically request otherwise.

Go to File → Options → Advanced. Scroll down to the Print section. Look for a checkbox that says Print using draft quality or options related to what gets printed. Find Print document properties and nearby settings.

Specifically look for Print Markup or a related checkbox in this section. Unchecking it here sets the default for all future print jobs rather than just the current one.

In some Word versions this setting is under File → Options → Display — look for Printing Options at the bottom of the Display settings page. A checkbox labeled Print drawings created in Word and nearby options control default print behavior including markup.

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Accept or Hide Comments Before Printing

An alternative approach is to deal with the comments themselves before printing rather than adjusting print settings.

Accept all tracked changes and delete all comments if the document is in its final state and the markup is no longer needed. Go to the Review tab in the ribbon. Click Accept → Accept All Changes to accept every tracked change. Then click the dropdown next to Delete in the Comments group and select Delete All Comments in Document.

With all changes accepted and all comments deleted, there’s nothing to print regardless of what the print markup setting is. This is the right approach when the document is truly final and you don’t need the review history anymore.

If you want to keep the comments in the document but not print them — preserving them for future reference while getting clean printouts — use the print setting approach from the sections above rather than deleting them.

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Hide Markup Temporarily Using the Review Tab

Another way to control what prints is to change what’s displayed before printing. Word prints what it displays — if markup is hidden in the current view, it won’t print.

Go to the Review tab in the ribbon. Find the Tracking group and look for the Show Markup dropdown or the display mode selector. Change the display from All Markup or Simple Markup to No Markup.

With No Markup selected, the document displays as its final clean version — no comment balloons, no tracked change highlights. Printing from this view produces a clean document without markup.

After printing, switch back to All Markup or Simple Markup to restore the comment display for editing purposes.

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Printing Specific Comments Intentionally

If you ever want to print only the comments as a reference list without printing the full document, Word supports this too.

Go to File → Print → Print All Pages dropdown and select List of Markup. This prints a standalone list of all comments and tracked changes — author, date, and content — without printing the document itself.

Useful for distributing reviewer feedback separately from the document, or keeping a record of comments after accepting all changes.

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A Quick Checklist

• File → Print → Print All Pages dropdown → uncheck Print Markup — fastest fix for the current print job
• Select Document instead of Document Showing Markup in the same dropdown if Print Markup option isn’t visible
• File → Options → Display → Printing Options — change the default so markup never prints
• Review tab → Show Markup → No Markup — hide markup in view before printing as an alternative
• Review tab → Accept All Changes + Delete All Comments — clean the document permanently if review is complete

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The Bottom Line

Word prints comments because Print Markup is enabled in the print settings — a single checkbox in the File → Print dropdown turns it off for the current job. For a permanent fix that prevents it from happening on every document, the same setting in File → Options → Display changes the default behavior going forward.

If the document is in its final state and comments are no longer needed, accepting all changes and deleting all comments is the cleanest solution — it removes the markup entirely rather than just hiding it from printouts.

Comments print because Word was told to print them — one checkbox in the print dialog tells it not to.