Hello everybody,

I just joined this community and this is my first email.

I am sure these three question must have been posted a hundred times before but I couldn't find the answers in the preliminary search I did here. Please feel free to redirect me to any video or tutorial site for my issue....

I want to know the steps (at least rough steps) to transfer my address book from excel 2003 to outlook so that I can get it finally into my iphone. I don't know how can I tell outlook or excel that the column A has the 'first names', column B has the 'last names' column C has the Phone no. and so on.

Moreover, my excel sheets have so many columns eg, "no. of children" and "the school they went to" which are not there in Outlook at all.. I want ALL the contacts in my outlook to have these two additional fields.. How can I do that in bulk and not add these two fields manually for each contact??

Also I want to be able to save all the contact information from outlook back to some kind of file on my external hard disk.... for backup you know...

Please give me steps for these three tasks...(most important is the first one of course... I am struggling since I got the iPhone on the 11th.)

Cheers,
Charles.

1. See http://www.slipstick.com/Tutorials/import/import.htm - use the same
method for contacts.
2. I don't think you can import to custom fields - maybe use the 4 user
fields outlook already has or merge the cells of extra data and place it in
the Notes field (Message field when mapping fields).
3. Do you want the data in outlook format or a more universal format?


--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Need Help with Common Tasks? http://www.outlook-tips.net/beginner/
Outlook 2007: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2007/

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** Please include your Outlook version, Account type, and Windows Version
when requesting assistance **


"Charles Brown" wrote in message
...

Hello everybody,

I just joined this community and this is my first email.

I am sure these three question must have been posted a hundred times
before but I couldn't find the answers in the preliminary search I did
here. Please feel free to redirect me to any video or tutorial site for
my issue....

I want to know the steps (at least rough steps) to transfer my address
book from excel 2003 to outlook so that I can get it finally into my
iphone. I don't know how can I tell outlook or excel that the column A
has the 'first names', column B has the 'last names' column C has the
Phone no. and so on.

Moreover, my excel sheets have so many columns eg, "no. of children"
and "the school they went to" which are not there in Outlook at all.. I
want ALL the contacts in my outlook to have these two additional
fields.. How can I do that in bulk and not add these two fields
manually for each contact??

Also I want to be able to save all the contact information from outlook
back to some kind of file on my external hard disk.... for backup you
know...

Please give me steps for these three tasks...(most important is the
first one of course... I am struggling since I got the iPhone on the
11th.)

Cheers,
Charles.




--
Charles Brown

Thanks Diane.

I can get the contacts in outlook now using 'named ranges' in excel. However I have nicknames for my contacts and the 'nickname' field in outlook did not take that, e.g. I call my nephew, tiger, but the contact's nickname field showed as blank after the import from excel. I had to finally send it in the notes. Why did outlook not take the nickname?

Also what is the value to be sent in the 'file as' field. I sent 'First Last' and it still saved my contact as 'Last, First' Why?

Also what is the use of the 4 user fields if you can't tell outlook to add the 4 fields for all the contacts (current, and ones in future) as : 'date we met', 'favorite movie', 'favorite food' and favorite drink'.

For the last question I asked earlier.. (saving the contacts in external HDD) any format which Outlook can read again is fine.. If excel can also read then its great but I want outlook to read atleast... Will all my contacts in all folders go as one single file?

One very important question... Suppose one of my contacts has some important info in the notes field.. How can I search all my contacts to pin point that contact.. Ie are all fields (including Notes) searchable in outlook...

Thanks in advance.
Charles.