Word Copilot Summary Misses Comments in Shared Document: Fix

You ask Copilot in Word to summarize a shared document, but the generated summary does not include any text from the comments threaded in the document. This happens because Copilot for Word bases its summary on the main body text and tracked changes, not on the comments pane. Comments are designed for human discussion and are not indexed by the Copilot language model during summary generation. This article explains the exact technical reason for this behavior and provides the only reliable workaround to include comment content in your summary.

Why Copilot Summary Ignores Comments in Shared Documents

Microsoft Copilot for Word generates summaries by sending a subset of the document content to a large language model hosted in the Microsoft 365 cloud. The data pipeline that extracts content for the summary explicitly excludes the comments collection. Comments are stored as separate XML objects in the document file and are not part of the main story flow that Copilot reads.

This design choice exists for two reasons. First, comments often contain informal opinions, suggestions, or meta-discussion that is not suitable for an objective summary. Second, comments can be numerous and lengthy, and including them would increase the token count sent to the language model, which could slow down summary generation and increase cost. Microsoft has not provided an option to override this behavior in any current version of Word for Microsoft 365.

How Copilot Selects Content for the Summary

When you click the Copilot icon in the ribbon and select “Summarize this document,” Copilot extracts the following elements:

• All text in the main document body, including headings, paragraphs, tables, and lists
• Text inside text boxes and shapes that are in the main story layer
• Tracked changes (insertions and deletions) if Track Changes is on
• Headers and footers (depending on the Copilot version and tenant configuration)

Copilot does not extract comments, footnotes, endnotes, or content from embedded documents.

What Happens When You Ask Copilot to Include Comments

If you type a prompt such as “Summarize this document and include the comments,” Copilot still generates a summary that omits comments. The language model can only work with the text that the extraction pipeline provides. Since comments are not in the pipeline, the model cannot include them regardless of the prompt wording.

Steps to Include Comment Text in a Copilot Summary

The only reliable method to force comment content into a Copilot summary is to manually copy the comments into the main document body, generate the summary, and then remove the copied text. Follow these steps exactly.

1. Turn off Track Changes temporarily
   If Track Changes is on, any text you paste into the body will appear as an insertion. Go to Review > Track Changes and click the button to turn it off. This prevents the pasted comments from cluttering the document with tracked changes.
2. Open the Comments pane
   Click Review > Show Comments or click the Comments icon in the upper-right corner of the document window. The Comments pane opens on the right side of the window.
3. Copy all comments to the clipboard
   Click inside the Comments pane, press Ctrl+A to select all comment text, then press Ctrl+C to copy. This copies the author name, timestamp, and comment body for every comment in the document.
4. Paste the comments at the end of the document
   Scroll to the last page of the document. Place your cursor after the final paragraph mark. Press Ctrl+V to paste the copied comment text. The comments appear as plain text with a bullet or paragraph format.
5. Add a label above the pasted text
   Type the heading “Comments from reviewers” on a new line above the pasted text. Apply the Heading 1 style to this line. This helps Copilot treat the pasted content as a distinct section.
6. Generate the Copilot summary
   Click the Copilot icon in the Home tab ribbon. Select “Summarize this document” from the Copilot pane. Copilot now includes the pasted comment text in the input data, and the summary will reflect the content of the comments.
7. Delete the pasted comments after summary generation
   Select the “Comments from reviewers” heading and all pasted comment text. Press Delete. Turn Track Changes back on if you turned it off in step 1. The document returns to its original state, and the summary remains in the Copilot pane.

If Copilot Still Misses Comments After the Workaround

Copilot summary is too short to include comment content

Copilot generates a summary of a fixed length, typically three to five bullet points. If the document body is very long, the model may prioritize body text over the pasted comments even though the comments are present in the input. To fix this, reduce the amount of pasted comment text. Copy only the comment bodies without the author names and timestamps. Alternatively, condense the comments into a single paragraph before pasting.

Comments contain only images or file attachments

If a comment contains an image, a file attachment, or an emoji, Copilot cannot process that content. Only the text portion of each comment is included in the summary. If a comment has no text, it contributes nothing to the summary. Ask reviewers to add text descriptions to their comments before you run the workaround.

Document is stored in a tenant with Copilot data restrictions

Some Microsoft 365 tenants have data residency policies that restrict what content Copilot can send to the language model. If your tenant has a policy that excludes comments from all Copilot data sources, the workaround still works because the comments are now part of the document body. Verify your tenant policy with your Microsoft 365 administrator if the workaround fails.

Copilot Summary: Including Comments vs Default Behavior

Item	Default Copilot Summary	After Workaround
Data source	Main body text and tracked changes only	Main body text, tracked changes, and pasted comment text
Comments included	No	Yes
Effort required	Zero	Manual copy-paste and cleanup
Document modified	No	Temporarily modified
Track Changes preserved	Yes	Must be turned off during paste

You can now force Copilot to summarize comment content by temporarily pasting comments into the document body. For future documents, ask collaborators to place key discussion points directly in the body text using a dedicated section labeled “Review Notes” instead of relying on the comments pane. This approach eliminates the need for the workaround and keeps all content visible to Copilot at all times.