Brian,

I have tried that approach, but one of the programs I utilize to send
e-mails to groups of contacts (Snag-It) will not let me select from my
contact list using categories. I believe this program utilizes Outlook
functionality and brings up a screen with options to use name or "additional
columns". I have been unable to select anything from this screen other than
names or DLs for sending e-mails. Maybe I don't know how to utilize
additional columns feature as I don't see any change in my selection ability.
It seemed I should have been able to do the copying from contact category
lists to a DL without a problem, but have not had any success.

Thanks for the response.

"Brian Tillman" wrote:

J Austin wrote:

I have a list of several hundred contacts with various categories. I
want to create a new Distribution List that combines several of the
categories of contacts. I am not able to copy from the list sorted
by categories to the new Distribution List. I've tried standard
copy/paste and drag/drop and neither works.

Why create a new DL? Just add a new category and place the contacts you
wish to associate in the new category.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]

J Austin wrote:

I have tried that approach, but one of the programs I utilize to send
e-mails to groups of contacts (Snag-It) will not let me select from my
contact list using categories. I believe this program utilizes
Outlook functionality and brings up a screen with options to use name
or "additional columns". I have been unable to select anything from
this screen other than names or DLs for sending e-mails. Maybe I
don't know how to utilize additional columns feature as I don't see
any change in my selection ability. It seemed I should have been able
to do the copying from contact category lists to a DL without a
problem, but have not had any success.

OK. Apparently Snag-It uses the Outlook Address Book service and, as you
observe, categories are not available there.

I can think of a couple of round-about ways to accomplish it, but they
involve exporting and importing and unless you've got a lot of contants to
process, they may take more time than just adding the contacts to the DL
with Select Members.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]

Brian, I agree and actually started down that road yesterday. It brought up
another issue I've been addressing regarding the fact that I also use Outlook
Connector. Many times when I make a change to a contact and try to save it
tells me it can't because it has been changed or used by someone else or
another window. In discussions with another forum member, the error was
probably because of the Outlook Connector issue (I have 2 machines up at the
same time on the same MSN account). I ran directly into this when I
attempted to use Select Member and then said Ok when saving the DL. I have
to say I don't want to save in the default folder and then say I don't want
to save changes. Then I come back and make the changes exactly as I did
before and it save OK. I went down that road for several hours and then
noticed that instead of the name and e-mail address being in the normal
format as it was in the original contact e-mail address field, something was
changing it all back to just an e-mail address. I suspect something to do
with the NK2 file as I've run into very strange behavior based on how it is
storing nicknames (which I don't really understand). Anyhow, I've decided to
find another way around the Snag-It problem and work only out of Outlook. It
takes a couple of extra steps, but the other options seem to take more time
than the value of the return. I could export and use Access to make changes
to my contacts (have used that approach previously) that would solve the
problem but I'm dealing with a fairly complex set (over 3000 contacts)
associated with over 50 organizations and I have to update the contact list
yearly. I've actually thought about just keeping my "master" contact list in
Access and just exporting/importing to Outlook when needed.

I appreciate your help and responses.

"Brian Tillman" wrote:

J Austin wrote:

I have tried that approach, but one of the programs I utilize to send
e-mails to groups of contacts (Snag-It) will not let me select from my
contact list using categories. I believe this program utilizes
Outlook functionality and brings up a screen with options to use name
or "additional columns". I have been unable to select anything from
this screen other than names or DLs for sending e-mails. Maybe I
don't know how to utilize additional columns feature as I don't see
any change in my selection ability. It seemed I should have been able
to do the copying from contact category lists to a DL without a
problem, but have not had any success.

OK. Apparently Snag-It uses the Outlook Address Book service and, as you
observe, categories are not available there.

I can think of a couple of round-about ways to accomplish it, but they
involve exporting and importing and unless you've got a lot of contants to
process, they may take more time than just adding the contacts to the DL
with Select Members.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]

J Austin wrote:

Brian, I agree and actually started down that road yesterday. It
brought up another issue I've been addressing regarding the fact that
I also use Outlook Connector.

I don't have a lot of experience with the Outlook COnnector. I am able to
access my Hotmail account without it. Perhasp someone else will be able to
help.

Your NK2 file has nothing whatsoever to do with your Contacts folders and
nothing it the NK2 file can affect the Contacts folders.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]

Brian,

Thanks for the info on NK2. I didn't think it could, but one never knows
with some of these interactions with software that seems to have a mind of
its own.

"Brian Tillman" wrote:

J Austin wrote:

Brian, I agree and actually started down that road yesterday. It
brought up another issue I've been addressing regarding the fact that
I also use Outlook Connector.

I don't have a lot of experience with the Outlook COnnector. I am able to
access my Hotmail account without it. Perhasp someone else will be able to
help.

Your NK2 file has nothing whatsoever to do with your Contacts folders and
nothing it the NK2 file can affect the Contacts folders.
--
Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]