qax-os/excelize · error

comment already exist on cell

Error message

comment already exist on cell %s

What it means

newAddCommentError builds the error returned when adding a comment to a cell that already has one, since a worksheet cell supports only a single comment per cell in this model. addComment detects the existing comment for the target cell and wraps the cell reference in this message.

Solutions

1. Delete the existing comment first (DeleteComment) before adding a new one
2. Skip cells that already have comments, or update/merge your comment text with the existing one
3. Write into a fresh workbook or a cleared sheet when regenerating output

Example fix

// before
f.AddComment("Sheet1", &excelize.Comment{Cell: "A1", Text: "new"}) // fails if A1 has a comment
// after
if f.GetComments("Sheet1", "A1") != nil {
	f.DeleteComment("Sheet1", "A1")
}
f.AddComment("Sheet1", &excelize.Comment{Cell: "A1", Text: "new"})

if f.GetComments(sheet, cell) != nil { f.DeleteComment(sheet, cell) }

if err := f.AddComment(sheet, &excelize.Comment{Cell: cell, Text: text}); err != nil {
	if strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "comment already exist on cell") {
		err = f.DeleteComment(sheet, cell)
		if err == nil { err = f.AddComment(sheet, &excelize.Comment{Cell: cell, Text: text}) }
	}
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling f.AddComment("Sheet1", &excelize.Comment{Cell: "A1", ...}) twice for the same cell without deleting the first comment.

Common situations: Regenerating a report into an existing file/template that already has comments; loops that add annotations to every cell but run more than once; merging data from two sources that both annotate the same cells.

Related errors

• base field does not exist in shared items
• cannot convert cell to coordinates
• chart title field value must be an integer from 0 to 100
• data fields appear both in the pivot table column fields…
• data fields appear both in the pivot table row fields and…

AI-assisted analysis of qax-os/excelize@f2483381fb (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/817346bb29ab962d. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at errors.go:225

	// ErrWorkbookPassword defined the error message on receiving the incorrect
	// workbook password.
	ErrWorkbookPassword = errors.New("the supplied open workbook password is not correct")
)

// ErrSheetNotExist defined an error of sheet that does not exist.
type ErrSheetNotExist struct {
	SheetName string
}

// Error returns the error message on receiving the non existing sheet name.
func (err ErrSheetNotExist) Error() string {
	return fmt.Sprintf("sheet %s does not exist", err.SheetName)
}

// newAddCommentError defined the error message on the comment already exist in
// the cell.
func newAddCommentError(cell string) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("comment already exist on cell %s", cell)
}

// newCellNameToCoordinatesError defined the error message on converts
// alphanumeric cell name to coordinates.
func newCellNameToCoordinatesError(cell string, err error) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("cannot convert cell %q to coordinates: %v", cell, err)
}

// newChartTitleError defined the error message on receiving the invalid chart
// title parameters.
func newChartTitleError(name string) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("chart title field %s value must be an integer from 0 to 100", name)
}

// newCoordinatesToCellNameError defined the error message on converts [X, Y]
// coordinates to alpha-numeric cell name.
func newCoordinatesToCellNameError(col, row int) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid cell reference [%d, %d]", col, row)

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