Office Instant Messaging

Microsoft Office XP introduced smart tags to the Office applications. A smart tag is a special shortcut menu that provides you with additional options related to a particular feature. There are paste smart tags, AutoCorrect smart tags, and smart tags for dates, times, and addresses that you place in your Office documents. Office 2003 has added a new Person Name smart tag that flags contact names that you have added to your Outlook Contacts list and provides the Windows Messenger address for the contact.

Make Sure the Person Name Smart Tag Is Active The Person Name smart tag must be applied to names in your documents if you want to send instant messages. Select Tools , then AutoCorrect Options . In the AutoCorrect dialog box, click the Smart Tags tab and make sure that the Person Name (English) smart tag has a check mark next to it.

For example, if you create a document that includes the person's name, the name will be flagged with the Person Name tag (the name will be underlined with a dashed red line). Point at the name and click the smart tag icon that appears (the icon looks like the Windows Messenger icon, see Figure 1.6). On the menu that appears, select Send Instant Message .

Figure 1.6. Send instant messages directly from your Office applications using the Person Name smart tag.

A Windows Messenger window will open . You can now send your instant message as needed.

Your Message Recipient Must Be Online To send an instant message to a person using the new Person Name smart tag, that person must currently be online using Windows Messenger. If they are not online, the Send Instant Message menu choice is not available.