Add text markup, shapes, watermarks, and comments to Excel spreadsheets.

Annotate Excel Spreadsheets with C#

Add and manage annotations in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets programmatically — no Office installation required.

How to Annotate an Excel Spreadsheet in C#

GroupDocs.Annotation for .NET makes it easy to annotate Excel spreadsheets:

  1. Open the Excel file with an Annotator instance.
  2. Create and configure the annotation you need.
  3. Add the annotation to the spreadsheet.
  4. Save the annotated Excel file.
// Annotate an Excel spreadsheet

// Open the spreadsheet with an Annotator instance
using (Annotator annotator = new Annotator("input.xlsx"))
{
    // Create an area annotation
    AreaAnnotation area = new AreaAnnotation
    {
        Box = new Rectangle(100, 100, 200, 80),
        BackgroundColor = 65535,
        PageNumber = 0,
        Message = "Important"
    };

    // Add the annotation
    annotator.Add(area);

    // Save the annotated spreadsheet
    annotator.Save("annotated.xlsx");
}
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Full Control Over Excel Annotations

Add every annotation type to Excel spreadsheets and manage them with a simple API.

Annotate Excel spreadsheets

Text Markup

Highlight, underline, strike out, or replace text in Excel files.

Shapes & Watermarks

Draw shapes and stamp watermarks or images onto Excel worksheets.

Manage Annotations

Get, remove, import, and export Excel annotations.

Read Excel Annotations

Retrieve the annotations stored in an annotated Excel spreadsheet:

C#

//  Open the annotated spreadsheet
using (Annotator annotator = new Annotator("annotated.xlsx"))
{
    // Get all annotations
    List<AnnotationBase> annotations = annotator.Get();

    // Inspect each annotation
    foreach (AnnotationBase annotation in annotations)
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine(annotation.Message);
    }

    // Save the spreadsheet
    annotator.Save("output.xlsx");
}
dotnet add package GroupDocs.Annotation
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More examples Documentation

Annotate Excel Files

GroupDocs.Annotation for .NET lets you add, edit, and remove annotations in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Highlight cells, draw shapes, stamp watermarks and images, and attach threaded comments — then save the result in the original Excel format.
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Useful resources

Explore documentation, code samples, and community support to enhance your experience.

Annotate Other File Formats

GroupDocs.Annotation for .NET supports annotating documents across many file formats:

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