It seems to be supported Cell Annotations - Apache OpenOffice Wiki
Select a cell
Click on the menu item:
Insert - Comment
Then type-in or paste the text of the annotation
How to format the comment text:
…or please give us some more details about your problem.
thanks - that did the trick
anyway to format the comments in the box - bigger/smaller with formatting tags to improve readability?
Select the text in the Comment box, and increase the font size.
See it at my answer.