In Microsoft Office, Discussions offer a new way for multiple reviewers to collaborate online with files. You or a reviewer inserts online Discussion remarks in a file with replies nested directly under remarks. All reviewers can view the Discussion remarks at any time. When you use Discussions you don't have to route the file or reconcile individual comments in multiple copies later on.

You can use Discussions to insert online remarks in any Microsoft Word document, Microsoft Excel workbook, or Microsoft PowerPoint® presentation. You can also use Discussions directly from within your browser to insert remarks into Web pages in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) format.

What does a discussion look like?

When you use Discussions in Office, you'll see a discussion pane in which anyone reviewing the file can view and reply to any discussion.

When you use a browser to insert or view Discussions, discussion remarks about specific areas of a document will appear inside the document rather than in the discussion pane.

How do discussions work?

Your system administrator must set up Microsoft Office Server Extensions and a Web server designated as a Discussions server. Then you can use the Discussions toolbar to discuss material in binary format (.doc, .xls, or .ppt) or in HTML format. You can read about using Web folders to store HTML documents on Web servers in Web folders: A new way to share information in Office.

Let your reviewers know that the document is available and when their remarks are due. Then reviewers can individually insert their remarks from within Office or from their browsers. If reviewers want to be notified of any changes or additions to current discussions, they can subscribe to the file through their browser so that they will be notified of changes to the contents of the file.

To use Discussions from an Office program, open the file you want to add discussion remarks to. If the Discussions toolbar is not displayed, on the Tools menu, point to Online Collaboration, and then click Web Discussions so that you can use the toolbar to insert remarks.

To use Discussions from your browser, if you have Office 2000 or later installed, open the Web page you want to add discussions to. If you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later, click Discuss. If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0, on the View menu, point to Explorer Bar, and then click Discuss.

Note  If you're using another browser or you don't have Office installed, type http://ServerName/msoffice/ in the Address box, where ServerName is a Web server you can save files to. See your system administrator for the name of a Web server you can save files to.

See also

For more information about discussions, type Discussions in the Office Assistant or on the Answer Wizard tab, and then click Search.