Adding a Discussion Server

In large companies, you may have more than one discussion server set up in your organization. You can define more than one discussion server in Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003, which means you can connect to more than one. This comes in very handy, particularly if you are working on a document development team and need access to documents in multiple departments.

To add a discussion server to Word, follow these steps:

1. Choose Online Collaboration from the Tools menu. Word displays a submenu.
2. Choose Web Discussions from the submenu. The Discussions toolbar appears at the bottom of the program window, along with the Discussion Options dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.) In Word 2002 and Word 2003, you may need to click on the Discussions option on the Discussions toolbar, and then choose Discussions Options.
3. Click your mouse on the Add button. The Add or Edit Discussion Servers dialog box appears. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. Provide the name of the Web server you want to add as a discussion server.
5. Provide a short, memorable name for the server you are adding. For instance, you might provide a department name or a workgroup name.
6. Click on OK. You will again see the Discussion Options dialog box.
7. Click on OK to close the dialog box.

You should note that if you are already connected to a discussion server, you can simply click on the Discussions tool on the Discussions toolbar, and then choose Discussion Options from the resulting menu. You should do this in place of the first two steps in the foregoing; the rest of the steps are as noted.