Skype® for Dummies®

Chapter 6. The Mad Chatter

In This Chapter

• Starting a chat

• Getting your chat in order

• Monkeying around with your chat window appearance

• Understanding how chat history works

• Searching, saving, and sending your chats

Chatting with Skype is like flying first class. Skype lets you organize, customize, save, search, and add links to chats. You can invite chatters who aren't online so that they can be free to join the chat circle later. You can share information, files, contacts, and email links in a Skype chat. You can even have private conversations on the sly while you are chatting with a group. The Skype chat landscape is unique, and this chapter is your guidebook.

Set 'er Up and Let 'er Rip

Starting a chat is easy. Pick someone you want to chat with (someone who is online), and follow these steps:

1. Select a Skype contact from your Contacts list.

2. Click the blue Chat button in the toolbar (see Figure 6-1).

   If you don't see the button, open the View menu to verify that a check mark appears next to the View Toolbar option.

   After you click the Chat button, you're ready to chat! When your chat opens, it's ready for you to chat with the Skype contact you selected.

   Tip

   A confident chat organizer can invite more than one contact simultaneously. To do so, select several (or all) of your contacts in the main Skype window by pressing and holding the Shift key and clicking their names; then, click the Chat button.

   Figure 6.1. The Chat button in all its glory.

3. To chat with your contact, enter your text in the ...