Connecting To a Discussion Server

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 24, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 2000, 2002, and 2003

If your office has an intranet in which the Microsoft Office Server Extensions are available, you can utilize the Discussions feature available with Word 2000, Word 2002 and Word 2003. To take part in any discussion, or to start your own discussion, you will need to connect to a discussion server. (Again, this is a server that has the extensions installed and operational.)

To connect to a discussion server, follow these steps:

Open a document that you want to use in a discussion.
Choose Online Collaboration from the Tools menu. Word displays a submenu.
Choose Web Discussions from the submenu. The Discussions toolbar appears at the bottom of the program window.

At this point, if you have not set up Word for online discussions before, Word displays the Add or Edit Discussion Servers dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Add or Edit Discussion Servers dialog box.

Here you must provide the address (URL) of the discussion server, along with a name you want to use to refer to the server. If you have questions about what should be entered in this dialog box, contact your network administrator.

Once you have defined your discussion server location, all you need to do in the future is select the server you want to use for your discussions. You are then ready to use the discussion capabilities of Word.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (44) applies to Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Printing a Document's Mirror Image

If you need to print the mirror image (backwards) of a document, you may think you are out of luck in Word. There are ...

Discover More

Moving from Sheet to Sheet

Need to move quickly through the worksheets in a workbook? Learn the keyboard shortcuts and you can make short work of ...

Discover More

Copying Found Items to a New Document

Word allows you to use its searching capabilities to easily find multiple items in a document. What if you want to copy ...

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Editing a Discussion Server

How to change the address of a discussion server in Word.

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 8 - 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.