Knowledge Base

OL2000: Cannot Import or Export User-Defined Contact Fields

Article ID: 197654

Article Last Modified on 11/5/2003

APPLIES TO

This article was previously published under Q197654

SYMPTOMS

Using Outlook, you cannot import or export user-defined fields from or into other file formats using the Import and Export command on the File menu. This is true of user-defined fields in all Outlook items.

CAUSE

User defined fields are visible only in the Outlook viewer. These fields do not appear in the Outlook internal name list, therefore they are not exported.

RESOLUTION

Importing User-defined Fields

You can import data into four general Outlook fields called User Field 1, User Field 2, User Field 3, and User Field 4. These fields are available in a Contact record on the All Fields tab under Miscellaneous fields. For additional information about programmatically importing user-defined fields, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

208232 OL2000: Programmatically Import Outlook Items from MS Access

Exporting User-defined Fields

To export user-defined fields from your Contacts, define a Table view of the Contacts containing the user-defined fields. Then copy the contacts from Outlook and paste them into Microsoft Excel where you can save them in a variety of formats.

MORE INFORMATION

To define a Table view of your Contacts folder containing the user-defined fields you want to export:
  1. On the Tools menu, click Organize, and then click Using Views.
  2. In the Change Your View list, click a tabular view such as Phone list, click Customize Current View, and then click Fields.
  3. Click the field source from the "Select available fields from" list. This may be either "User-defined fields in folder" or a form containing the user-defined fields.
  4. Click the user-defined fields from the "Available fields" list, and then click Add to move the fields to the "Show these fields in this order" list.
  5. To position a field in the list, click the field, and then click Move Up or Move Down. Click OK twice.
  6. In the Current View list, click to select the current view name and type a name for your new view. Press ENTER, and then click OK.
The new column should now display the User-defined field.

Export the Contacts

To export the contacts, follow these steps:
  1. Click to select the set of Contacts you want to export, and on the Edit menu click Copy.
  2. Open Microsoft Excel, and paste the contacts into a new worksheet.
  3. On the File menu, click Save As to save the Contact records. In the Save ss type list, click the format you want.

REFERENCES

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

195576 OL2000: Internal Fields Used by Outlook Folders


Additional query words: custom OL2K

Keywords: kbhowto kbexport kbimport kbmigrate KB197654


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