Adding Research Services

[Milton]

How do I add Encyclopedia Britannica, to which I already subscribe, to my
Word 2003 Research Task Pane? When I type in www.britannica.com in the "Add
Services" dialog box of the Research Options, I get the message "No services
were added because the provided did not provide any valid information".

 

[Mary Sauer]

When I click the URL you supplied I get a "page not found." I am referred to
http://www.britannica.com/. Might be you need to include the "http://"

 

[Milton]

Thank you, Mary, but including the http:// did not cause it to work.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I'm venturing into territory where I have very little direct
knowledge, but my understanding is that the Research Pane sends
requests to "web services" -- specific types of applications that
"speak" a particular protocol. The URL you have is simply the HTML
front page of Brittanica's web site, not a web service (if indeed they
offer one).

Since you have a subscription, contact Brittanica's customer service
department and ask whether they offer a web service that Office can
talk to, and how to access it.

 

[Milton]

Thank you, Jay. I have contacted Britannica and they said they would look in
to the problem from their end. But since then I tried to add a free online
encyclopedia and got the same disappointing result.