Extracting doc comments into a regular table that one can sort through has been a pretty common request since circa 2020. It’s 2026 already and there’s still neither an API nor a formula to access those document comments.
A while ago I made an attempt at creating a solution for this. However, the way it worked back then was extremely cumbersome and hacky. It would require you to share your doc with me, and then my server would read its raw binary data, decode it, and extract comments from that. Several people inquired but ultimately that was a dead end solution.
However, there’s always been another way to access those comments — directly within a doc using a formula. One can use the $$[] reference notation to access system grids and extract just the same data as it exists in the codabuf file.
So that is what I finally took some time to do today.
Presenting: CTX Comments package
This is a drop-in solution that can be copied into any of your docs and used instantly. Its capabilities so far:
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Linking comment threads to locations (pages, rows, canvas cells) so that you can open them with a click
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Tracking resolved and deleted threads and comments
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Tracking reactions — both in a normalized and aggregated way
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Some nice base UI is present (and you can build on top of it)
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Not overloaded with live formulas — won’t take a performance toll
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Instantly synced through a
CtxComments.Refreshformula from any of your buttons -
Precautions are taken so that Coda doesn’t block your doc
(sync formula isn’t a live formula but a dynamic formula that’s eval()'ed only by a click)
This is a premium template, and happens to be one of the many of my upcoming CTX packages — my efforts to create an ecosystem of reusable, pret-a-porte templates that can be added to any power doc. Next up are a sophisticated mail sender with templates, a free Foundation template and a paid Foundation Pro Max with things like auto-cleanup and duplicate merger 2.0. I’m finally getting busy packaging all the Coda tricks and state-of-the-art best practices that I developed as part of my client work as well as random tinkering and this here is the first of the bunch.
How to get?
This isn’t that complicated to DIY — the clues are in the video. That said, if you’d just like to get it nice and quickly, I’ll be happy to sell this template to you
Self-checkout TBD.
For now, I’ll be installing these manually myself.
DM me here or write to paul@codatricks.com and I’ll make you a quote. In your message please tell me how many Maker seats your workspace has and in how many docs you’d like this to be installed.
Max