Comment and reply

Add comments in Dabble when you need to talk about the writing without changing it. A plot hole to flag. A “wait, didn’t she die in chapter three?” for your co-author. A note to future-you, right there in the margin.

Reply in a thread, resolve a comment once it’s handled, and find everything again in Comment History. Here’s the whole flow.

We’ll cover:

Before you begin: who can comment, and who can’t
Steps: leave your first comment, then reply, edit, and resolve
Pasting text that carries comments: bring the notes along, or leave them behind
Tips: orphaned comments, thread navigation, and read-only cases

Before you begin

Anyone with the Reviewer role or higher can comment. Reader access is view-only, so readers can’t leave comments.

Text selected in a manuscript scene, with the selection toolbar above it showing bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, highlight, and link, and the Add Comment speech-bubble icon highlighted with its Add Comment tooltip.

Steps

In the manuscript, select the text you want to comment on.
Click the comment icon in the toolbar (tooltip Add Comment), or press Cmd+Option+C / Ctrl+Alt+C to turn on the Comments view. Adding a comment turns the Comments view on automatically if it was off.
Type your note in the Leave a comment… field and click Save. Your comment appears as a card in the right gutter on desktop, or in a slide-up drawer on mobile.

An open comment card anchored to highlighted text: the commenter's name and time, the comment, a resolve (checkmark) button and … menu at the top, and a Reply field at the bottom.

Reply to a comment

Click a comment to open its thread.
Type in the Reply… field and click Save.

Edit or delete a comment

To change your wording, click Edit, update the text, and save. An edited comment shows an (edited) label.
To remove a comment, open the row menu and delete it.

Resolve a comment

On the thread root, click Mark as resolved. Resolved comments leave the gutter so you can focus on what’s still open.
To reopen a resolved comment, find it in Comment History and click Undo.

Keep track of new replies

When someone adds a reply you haven’t seen, the thread shows an unread indicator. Click Mark as read to clear it.

Review every comment

Open Comment History to see all comments, including resolved ones, in one place.

Pasting text that carries comments

Move a commented paragraph to another scene and there’s a question to answer: do the comments come too?

Dabble asks. Paste text that has comments attached and a window opens, titled Include comments?: “The pasted text has comments attached. Do you want to include them?”

Pick one:

Include Comments brings the threads along with the words.
Text Only pastes the words and drops the comments.

Then click Continue. Tick Remember my choice first and Dabble stops asking, using that answer from then on. Close the window without choosing and you get text only.

The question only comes up when the text actually carries comments. Everything else pastes straight through.

The Include comments? window: "The pasted text has comments attached. Do you want to include them?" with Include Comments and Text Only options, a Remember my choice checkbox, and Cancel and Continue buttons.

Copy versus cut

Copying and cutting do different things to a comment, and the difference is the one you’d hope for.

Copy and paste, and the comments arrive as fresh threads of their own. The originals stay put. Reply to one and the other never hears about it.

Cut and paste, and the original threads travel with the text. Same conversation, new address.

Change the Paste Comments preference

Told Dabble to remember and want the question back? It’s a setting.

Open Preferences from your account menu.
Go to the Advanced tab and find Paste Comments.
Switch Ask when pasting commented text back on.

Leave the toggle off and Dabble uses your saved default instead, which you pick with the Include Comments and Text Only options underneath it.

The Paste Comments section of the Preferences window's Advanced tab, with the "Ask when pasting commented text" toggle switched on and its note: "When pasting text that has comments, choose whether to bring the comments along. A copy gets its own independent comment threads."

Tips

Use the navigation arrows to move between threads. Tooltips read Previous comment or change and Next comment or change.
If the text a comment is attached to gets deleted, the comment becomes orphaned and shows Original content deleted. The note isn’t lost, but it’s no longer anchored to live text.
Comments are read-only when you’re viewing a merged review copy or a version-history preview.