Understanding Discussions

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


Word 2000 and later versions include a collaborative feature that allows you and others in your office to easily develop documents together, over the network. You do this using what Word calls the Discussions feature. This feature allows you and your colleagues to insert remarks into the same document and to participate in an active online discussion.

In order for the Discussions feature to work, everyone needs to be using a version of Word that supports the feature, and you need to be connected to a network on which a copy of the Microsoft Office Server Extensions is available. These are add-on programs for the Internet Information Server, which is also available from Microsoft. If you have doubts whether the extensions are available on your network, you should talk to your network administrator.

When you are using the Discussion feature, Word allows you and your co-workers to view the same document on-screen. Each of you can then make written remarks about the document. Others can immediately view the remarks, and they can respond. The responses are threaded, which simply means that you can easily follow the course of a discussion through several layers of comments.

There are two types of discussions you can have in relation to a document: inline or general. An inline discussion is one that relates to a specific portion of a document, such as a paragraph, table, or graphic. A general discussion is one that relates to the document as a whole.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (765) 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Removing Extra Paragraph Marks

Tired of having too many paragraph breaks in your document? You can get rid of the extra paragraph marks by using the ...

Discover More

Printer Won't Print Envelope Font

The default font used for envelopes is called Callibri. What do you do if you cannot print that font on your printer? ...

Discover More

Stopping a Workbook from Persistently Auto-Loading

Excel has the capability to automatically open workbooks when you first start the program. You may not want to have one ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Versions Not Saving Correctly

If you use Word's versioning tool, you may notice that you sometimes get errors with the versions in your documents. This ...

Discover More

Using AutoComplete Tips

AutoComplete tips are a nice, handy reminder of what you can enter into your document with just a keypress or click. In ...

Discover More

Updating Document Links

If you establish dynamic links between documents, then you can force Word to update those links whenever you want. How ...

Discover More
Subscribe

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.

What is eight minus 0?

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.

Videos
Subscribe

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

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.