To ask a really luddite question about Skype

[Thelowquietsea]

I am not good with Skype.

I've been invited to a meeting online. Typically, I would use the telephone option and dial in. But I need to see the screen they share - will it still work if I dial in only? Or if I don't dial in, but use Skype to connect, will they see me or will I only see the shared screen? Help!

Hi, when you say 'use the telephone option' do you mean use your 'normal' mobile or landline to call the Skype number? If so then no you won't be able to see the screen they share, you would need to dial in using the Skype programme itself for this.

And when you say 'will they see me', do you mean will they see your face via the video link option? If you don't want them to, then you can simply turn off the video and you will dial in audio only (all they will see is a box with your name or 'Guest' on it). Depending on how your Skype is set up you may not even need to do this, on mine you actually have to turn on video calls). To turn video on/off you just need to toggle the little cine-camera/video icon on the bottom left bar).

If you literally only want to see the screen though Skype and don't want to be seen or heard through your PC, you can also choose to join 'no audio', you can then dial in using your phone to hear/speak in the normal way. You'd just need to explain to people that's what you've done as you will 'appear' on the call twice which could be confusing...

Thanks so much, that's brilliantly helpful.

So, if I dial in using my handset, I won't be able to see their shared screen? I have to speak through the computer audio to do this, even though I hate that?

Are there any other options?

So what I was saying is you should be able to do both. So join the meeting through your computer, but select the 'do not join audio' option, or alternatively just mute yourself, and mute your speakers too. That way you will see the shared screen but you won't hear anything and no-one will hear you. Then dial in separately with your handset in the normal way for audio. This should work fine except as I said you will appear twice on the call...

Ah, I see! I have to do both things - dial in and join online. Thank you! I couldn't see how it was possible

Have a practisr run first OP if it's important

It went well, thank you both!