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Web Discussions enable you and your buddies to review a presentation, and use a nifty discussion panel at the bottom of your screen to make remarks.
 | This feature does require Office Server Extensions to be installed on your company's Web server. But a simple phone call to your network administrator or a quick stop by his or her office with a box of Ding Dongs should help you secure the server address to connect to. |
To start a Web Discussion in PowerPoint, follow these steps:
1. Make some friends at work.
You can have a discussion with yourself, but people talk. You and your colleagues may find that you can easily view documents from your individual computers, even if you are in the same office. This makes even more sense for branch offices miles away.
2. Choose Tools-->Online Collaboration-->Web Discussions.
Your computer buzzes and whirs for just a bit, and then the Web Discussions toolbar appears on your screen. Not much else seems to happen, yet. . . .
3. Click Discussions in the Web Discussions toolbar, and then choose Discussion Options.
Suddenly, a dialog box appears, like the one shown in Figure 1, giving you the opportunity to add a discussion server. Now's the time to bribe the network administrator with those Ding Dongs.
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Figure 1: Discussion Options. |
In this spot, you can edit, add, or remove your server selections, as well as set up how you would like your discussion to appear. You can set up your discussion fields here, including Display name, User name, Subject, Text, and Time. This is all very logical.
4. Click Add.
The dialog box shown in Figure 2 appears. Here is where you actually type in the address and name of your discussion server. You have to get that information from your network administrator. Hope he enjoyed the Ding Dongs.
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Figure 2: The Add or Edit Discussion Servers dialog box. |
5. Type the address and name of your discussion server in the appropriate fields, and then click OK.
You are whisked back to the Discussion Options dialog box, only this time the discussion server you added is selected in the Select a discussion server drop-down list.
6. Click OK.
Watch as your screen morphs into a discussion, with a special discussion pane appearing below the slide.
You can participate in Web Discussions by using the buttons on the Web Discussions toolbar, as described below:
- Discussions: Leads you to a pull-down menu of options to insert, refresh, filter, or print the discussions. Also gives you a return trip to the Discussion Options dialog box.
- Insert Discussion: Shortcut to the same function on the Discussions pull-down menu.
- Subscribe: This feature enables you to be notified by e-mail when any changes are made to a document or the contents of a file folder.
- Stop Communication: Disconnects you from the discussion server.
- Show/Hide Discussion Pane: Clicking this button hides or displays (whichever you aren't already doing) the discussion pane. It does not disconnect you from the discussion server.
- Close: Closes the whole Web Discussion, including the discussion pane, and disconnects you from the server.
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