With Office 2003 SP1, I frequently experience a problem in Word in
which comments whose reference marks appear in the main body of a
document suddenly disappear from the open reviewing pane. There are
two parts to this problem.

Part 1
Assume the reviewing pane is open and the markers for comments 21
through 28 are visible in the main body pane. Clicking between
comments 23 and 24 and adding a new comment opens a new, blank comment
24 in the reviewing pane. As I enter the text for this comment, the
entire comment is suddenly removed form the display and the reviewing
pane now shows comment 23 followed by comment 25 (the original comment
24). Meanwhile, in the main body pane the marker for the new comment
24 remains. Mousing around the two panes, and closing and opening the
reviewing pane can sometimes result in the display of the new comment,
but only temporarily. Before I can select it, it vanishes again. The
new comment 24 does exist, and its text can be viewed by hovering the
mouse over its marker in the main body pane, but it cannot be accessed
for editing in the reviewing pane.

I have discovered that I can sometimes regain the ability to view and
edit the comment by expanding the window to full screen. Once I bring
the application back to less than full screen I am subject to the
problem recurring. It should be noted that the only comments that seem
to experience the problems are ones that are being newly added during
this instantiation of Word. Comments added during a previous session
are not effected.

Part 2
There are also cases in which the new blank comment remains displayed,
but as text is being entered, some portion of it vanishes into thin
air, never to be seen again.

If anyone has any insights into the source and, more importantly, the
fix for this problem I would be deeply grateful.