Address Book - from Desktop to Laptop??

[addinfurnightem]

Help please - I've seen the thread about transfer of files but I only want to transfer the contents of my desk top PC address book, (Outlook 2000) to a laptop, (Outlook Express) via 'floppy' - any sensible instructions/suggestions will be much appreciated. Thanks all.

[bodger]

Addinfurnightem:-

Have a gander at

http://support.microsoft.com/support/OE/InProductHelp55/mailnews_import_ov.asp

It may help (Then again,it being MicroSoft -who knows.?)

[addinfurnightem]

Thanks Bodger but unfortunately although the help site you gave me says all the right things when I try to do it on the computer nothing matches!!! No mention of Address Book etc. Just cookies and favourites etc.
May have to call MS Help for this one, though I thought it was fairly simple!!!
Cheers.

[bodger]

Cookies in Outlook? I thought you only got those in your browser?

I could be wrong but I think the format of the address book on express is different to that in standard outlook.I think you may have to convert in outlook to one of the formats accepted by express and then import the converted file into express (I don't think you can just copy the file over)

[This message has been edited by bodger (edited 07 January 2001).]

[addinfurnightem]

Yes, silly me!!! Have been through it again,(with the mail programme and address book open this time), Open address book, select File but then find that both "Import" and "Export" are shaded and I cannot access them. Don't know how to change it.

[bodger]

I don't understand why they are greyed out.I thought you just exported the outlook address book as a .WAB file and then just imported it into express. (It seems silly that they don't both use the same format but thats microsoft.

[bodger]

I've just had a thought (no...nothing like that!)

Is it on the laptop that the options are greyed out.Is it a company provided laptop,does it run Nt or windows.If its nt what level is your access(user or admin)If its just user are users enabled to alter things like this or do you need to be admin level to do it.As you can see I can think of the questions it's the answers that are more difficult.

[addinfurnightem]

The desk top is a totally personal machine, always has been and it is from here, Outlook 2000, that I want to export to a laptop that was once a company machine, so far have not been near the laptop, it is on my personal PC that I am having the trouble. Thanks for your ideas etc. much appreciated.
Will now re-load the CD-Rom for Office 2000 and see if there is something in Business Tools or Outlook itself that I need to add to get Import and Export.

[bodger]

OK let us know how you get on

[Icarus]

ADD,
No need to open the address book, that is probably why things ar greyed out - you cannot export the file whilst it is in use.
..
From Outlook2000:
File/Export/Export to file/Comma Separated
Then select&export your contacts folder to A:
From Outlook Express
File/Import/Other address book/Comma Separated....etc.
..
Should be fine then. :)



[This message has been edited by Icarus (edited 12 January 2001).]

[addinfurnightem]

Thanks - away at the moment, will try when I get back.

[wysiwyg]

Thank gawd, I thought I was the only person on the planet having this problem!

wizzy

[fobotcso]

Icarus' solution works quite well - better than his father's trick with the feathers and wax - but there are a couple of oddities.

I tried it and just wanted to export Name and E-mail address; the Outlook "export" routine gives you the chance to select those. But Outlook Express only found the Name in the *.CSV file and ignored the e-mail address (which was there).

You can see the file's contents in Notepad as it is a text file. Each Name and E-mail entry is on a separate line. There were no commas at the ends of the lines so the second field was ignored and all I got imported into OE Address book were the Names.

The first line of the CSV file is the field names; in my case Name and E-mail Address. Using Notepad, I put a comma at the end of this line (and saved it) and, hey presto, the OE import routine accepted both fields.

The other oddity is that after exporting the Outlook Address Book, every E-mail Address Entry has added to it the phrase "SMTP plus Name" (without the punctuation).

For instance:

Bill Smith [email protected]

appears as

Bill Smith [email protected] SMTP Bill Smith

What now, Icarus?

[Icarus]

Sorry for the late reply, been away from base and just got back (absolutely knackered!).
Anyway, perhaps I could have been a little more informative the first time around, sorry.
I have had no problems just doing this now, I was even brave enough to delete my OE addressbook to prove it works!.

From Outlook 2000.
File/Import-Export/Export to file/CSV DOS.
Select your contacts folder to export.
Name the file (eg OutlookContacts) and NEXT will save the CSV file in My Documents as an Excel CSV file.

From OE5.
File/Import/Other address Book/Text CSV.
Browse to x:\My Documents and select the OutlookContacts.CSV file.
VERY IMPORTANT!!! - Map (select) the fields you want to import!!

And that's all there is to it folks!

:)

[fobotcso]

Icarus, thanks for coming back to me on this. Clearly I was exporting my Outlook address book differently to your method. Through trial and error I've found that you have to export at least one more field from Outlook than you are going to import to OE. And at least one of the extra fields has to be after the e-mail field. The reason is that there is no comma at the end of an address line in the CSV file and therefore OE won't see the last field.

So when you get to your import stage in OE you will be able to see the both name and e-mail address fields as well as any others you exported. Then, as you say, you have to map the fields you want to your OE fields (probably just name and e-mail address).

All this using Outlook 2000 and the OE in IE 5.5 with Win 2000. Thanks again.

And I hope this has been of some help to the original questioner and others.

[This message has been edited by fobotcso (edited 20 January 2001).]

[addinfurnightem]

Bodger/Icarus - Success!, (of sorts, anyway). Unable to transfer from Outlook 2000 to Outlook Express, my Contacts folder contains only names and 'phone numbers in it, all the Email addresses were in the address book and that was not an Outlook 2000 option. However, running 'underneath' Outlook 2000 was the copy of Outlook Express that comes with IE5 etc and that had faithfully copied all the information I had put into the OL2000 Address Book into it's own, (only addresses, no messages etc.), and that Import/Export was no problem as a .CSV file. Thanks for all your ideas.