I'll try that. Will it remain for all documents I do in Word, or do I need to always make that change with a tracked changes doc?

A coworker recommended that I delete each comment individually and that worked too. That seems rather cumbersome; this doc had only a few but for a longer one it would take a long time to go through and do that. But for this instance it worked.

I'll remember the "balloons--never" trick too.

Thank you, JimP!