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editor   Chris Curtis
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Outlook Express – Printing your Contacts

Outlook Express leaves a lot to be desired in terms of customizing options for printing your address book. When you print from the Outlook Express Address Book, it will print:

• Name
• Home Address
• Business Address
• Home Phone Number
• Business Phone
• Email Address
• Company
• Title

Suppose you only want a print out of the Name and Email Address? Outlook Express doesn't give you that option, but there is a work around that you can employ to get what you want.

You can export your address book to a CSV (comma separated value) file. A CSV file is a text format that can be recognized by most text edititing programs. You can open a CSV file format in Notepad, Word (or another word processor), Excel (or another spreadsheet program.) Because of the fields selected are separated by a comma, opening the file with a spreadsheet program is optimal because each field will be separated into it's own column. Here is how you export your address book.

From your main Outlook Express window:

• Click on File | Export
• Select Address Book from the submenu
• The Export Address Book tool will be displayed
• Select Text File (Comma Separated Values)
• Click on the Export Button
• Click on Browse to direct where you want to save your CSV file (Suggest My Documents Folder)
• Type in a file name (i.e., Email Addresses)
• Click on Save, you will be returned to the export wizard dialog box
• Click on Next

OE 6.0 presents you with an option dialog box that allows you to select which fields from the address book records you want to extract. Deselect everything except Name and Email address; then click on Finish. You will then get a message confirming a successful export, click on OK; and then click on Close to close the export wizard dialog box.

To Open your CSV file

Now go to the program with which you want to open your file and print (Notepad, Works, Word, Excel). Your best option is to open it with a spreadsheet program (including Works Spreadsheet), if you have one. It will automatically separate the two fields into separate columns.

• Click on File | Open
• Navigate to My Documents where you stored the CSV file
• Click on the Drop Down next to Files of Type and select All Files
• Find the Email Addresses.csv file and double click on it.

Your file will open in the program you chose. Each record in your Outlook Express address will be displayed on one line separated by a comma in a word processing program. In a spreadsheet program, each record will be on a single row with the name in the first column and the email address in the second column.

If you are using Outlook, the option to choose which fields you want to extract is not available, although the process is essentially the same. The CSV file is populated with all Outlook Contact fields. This can be easily manipulated with a spreadsheet program but much more complex and confusing in a word processing program. A better technique for getting a list of Name and Email address is to create a custom view of your Outlook contacts file to display simply those fields.


Special Edition Using Microsoft Outlook 2000 (Special Edition Using)
Using Microsoft Outlook 2000

I personally own this book and have found it to be a terrific reference tool. Whether you're using it for personal information, e-mail, collaborative networking, or some combination of these, Microsoft Outlook is a subtle, powerful application. If you want to make the most of using it, take a look at Special Edition: Using Microsoft Outlook 2000, a gigantic reference written specifically for intermediate to advanced users.


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