Connecting To a Discussion Server

To take part in any Web discussion using Excel, or to start your own discussion, you need to connect to a discussion server. (Again, this is a Web server that has the extensions installed and operational.) To connect to a discussion server using Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003, follow these steps:

1. Choose Online Collaboration from the Tools menu, and then Web Discussions from the resulting submenu. Excel displays the Discussions toolbar at the bottom of the program window.
2. If you have not set up any of your Office applications for online discussions before, you may see the Add or Edit Discussion Servers dialog box. If you do, skip to step 6.
3. Click Discussions on the toolbar, then choose Discussion Options. Excel displays the Discussion Options dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. If you previously set up Excel to use a discussion server, simply select the discussion server you want to use from those shown in the dialog box, then skip to Step 8.
5. If you have no discussion servers defined, or you need to define a new discussion server, click the Add button. Excel displays the Add or Edit Discussion Servers dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
6. Near the top of the dialog box, provide the address (URL) of the discussion server. (If you have questions about what should be entered in this dialog box, contact your network administrator.)
7. Near the bottom of the dialog box, provide the name you want to use to refer to the server.
8. Click OK until all dialog boxes are closed.