Sorry about the lack of version info... oversight.
Win XP Pro SP2
Office 2002 SP3
Regional Settings:
Standards and formats - English US
Location - US
Languages - English, French and Spanish

About the double-quotes, I have noticed them within the CSV files, I have
always understood the concept, and for ever I have avoided using dbl-quotes
in the Notes field to avoid OL a possible confusion, but I have not
understood why, nonetheless, all multi-line notes get imported incomplete.
If I bother to go and fix the file by replacing all line returns to
something like semi-colons, then all will turn out fine... I just took it as
a glitch and adapted.

Humor me a bit and try this: export a couple of contacts with multi-line
notes as a CSV file, then open Excel, then open the CSV file. If you ask,
why not open it directly from Explorer, the answer is that any numbers that
begin with 0, like some foreign countries' phone #s, zip codes, or overseas
access codes, will all lose that initial 0.

In terms of special characters changing, you can test by using
Ctrl+SingleQuote then type a vowel to obtain an accented vowel, or
Ctrl+Comma, then type C for c with a little tail (cedilla) or Ctrl+Colon
(Shift+Semicolon), then a vowel for the two little dots over the vowel.
--
Cheers,
Alphonse


"Karl Timmermans" wrote in message
...
Interesting results you are encountering

When Excel saves a worksheet to a CSV file - it does so using double quotes
as the field qualifiers which handles any fields that have embedded comma's
(pretty much a universal method of dealing with that issue). It's never been
an issue for us in the all the years we've been dealing with Outlook
importing/exporting nor has anyone else ever told us that they couldn't
import a file after saving an XLS file to CSV. Ergo, this is the first time
have seen a problem report about how Excel saves a CSV file.

In terms of multi-line notes - Outlook does import those for the same reason
mentioned above - the notes field is surrounded by double-quote qualifiers
(in fact just re-tested Outlook's import/export wizard with a file that
contains both the conditions above and all worked just as advertised).

In terms of characters being replaced, may have something to do with your
system's configuration but don't currently have a test file with those
conditions to test the Outlook import/export wizard so can't comment.

Having said all of that, you have also not provided any version information
regarding the versions of Outlook or Excel you're using - or operating
system in use etc (my response above applies to all versions of
Excel/Outlook '2000 and above). Would also be interesting to know what your
regional settings are.

Karl
__________________________________________________ _
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com


"Alphonse" wrote in message
...
The problem with converting the xls file into a csv file is that any
carriage returns in the Notes field creates a new record or entry, not only
creating bogus contacts but also rendering the Notes incomplete. Also, for
those records which have names that contain special characters, meaning any
letter with an accent mark, thus, Spanish, French and German to name but
three, such characters get often replaced by a ? or some other ANSI
character. As if this were not enough, converting into CSV causes anything
that has a comma, like addresses and notes, will shift all data beyond it to
another field, pushing some past the last column. A better solution to the
commas problem is to convert to a Tab Separated Values, which actually saves
it as a txt file, but even this does not save you from the first two
problems I stated.

Here is a better way:
To use a Microsoft Excel workbook to import information, cancel everything
in Microsoft Outlook, and then open up the file in Excel. To define a named
range in Microsoft Excel, follow these steps:

1. Select the range of cells (including column headers) that you want to
import.
2. On the Insert menu, point to Name, and then click Define.
3. In the Names In Workbook box, type a name (the name may not contain
spaces nor should it be the same as one of the column header names) for the
range that you specified, and then click Add.
4. Click OK, and on the File menu, click Save.
5. Save and quit the workbook.
(edited excerpt from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196743/en-us)
-or-
1. Select the range of cells (including column headers) that you want to
import.
2. While that block is selected, type a name for the range in the box above
the grid, to the left of the formula bar (it usually has a cell number in it
and if you hover over the box it should say Name Box).
3. Save and close the spreadsheet and try to import into Outlook again.
(formatted answer given by Jocelyn Fiorello, MVP - Outlook
--
Cheers,
Alphonse


"Karl Timmermans" wrote in message
...
To avoid the "Named Range" requirement for the Excel file using the
Outlook
import wizard, just save the worksheet with the contact info as a CSV file
and import the CSV file in Outlook instead.

Karl

__________________________________________________ _
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com



"Alphonse" wrote in message
...
Hi,
I have received and Excel file with Contact information; all the
headings,
Title, First Name, etc. are correctly placed at the top of each column,
but
when I try to import the xls file I receive a message stating "The MS
Excel
file [path\filename] has no named ranges. Use Excel to name the range of
data you want to import."
I don't understand what it means by "named ranges"... I have looked in XL
but have not found anything that helps. Can someone please tell me how to
do
this?
--
Cheers,
Alphonse