Most people when they think of Yahoo's chat program, think of the full blown Yahoo Messenger application that you have to download and install in order to chat with other people on Yahoo (or Windows Live Messenger for that matter). But the fact is, if you have a Yahoo e-mail account, you already have access to Yahoo chat.
To use Yahoo chat, log into your Yahoo e-mail program as you always do, then add someone you know to your Contacts list if you don't have any already, by clicking on the little add menu choice:

To talk to them on chat, the only piece of information you need about them is their login name; everything else is useful only for personal reasons.
Note: Only users with a Yahoo or Windows Live address can chat with you on Yahoo Chat.

Once you have the contact information for the person you wish to chat with, arrange for them to get online, because you can't chat with someone unless they are there for you to chat with.
You'll know if they are online and logged into their Yahoo account if there is a gold smiley face next to their name:

To start a chat session with them, double-click on their name to bring up the chat screen…
…on the other hand, if you wish to chat with someone who is not on your contacts list, you can start a chat session with them by clicking where it says New at the top of the screen…

…you'll get a little drop-down that looks like this:
Click on Chat (Instant Message) c

You should get the chat screen prompting you for the e-mail address of someone you'd like to chat with:

Either way, once you establish contact with the person you want to chat with, your screen should look like this at the top:

…and like this at the bottom:

At this point, you are ready to commence chatting with the other person. Type a greeting message at the bottom of the window in the input pane and then press the Enter key on your keyboard, your message should show up on the conversation pane, like this:

Soon, you should get a message back from the other person:

Note how the default Avatar points to which person is chatting.
You can type messages back and forth to one another for as long as you like in this fashion; your messages will appear one after another in the message pane.
The chat facility inside of Yahoo is not very fancy, but you can make text bold, italics, or underlined, or change its colors, font and font size, and of course input emoticons; all by using the menu just above the text input box.

You can't use audio or video like you can with other chat programs, but if all you want to do is text chat with someone, the chat facility inside of Yahoo should do you just fine.
Also, like other chat programs, you can set your status if you'd like. To do so, look at the top of your Yahoo screen to where it shows you your current status:

To change your status, click on your current status to get this drop-down menu:

Click on whichever status you prefer.
When you're done chatting, you can click on the Sign Out menu choice on your status icon (show above) or simply log out of Yahoo.
Copyright © 2007
Online Tech Tips.
Aseem Kishore (digitalfingerprint: a59a56dce36427d83e23b501579944fcakmk1980 (209.85.224.81) )Post from:
Use the Yahoo Chat Facility Inside of Yahoo E-Mail


