Making amends
- — 11 November, 2005 14:30
Having two contacts folders can be useful under certain circumstances - just make sure they dont get mixed up in your address book. Here's how to get it right.
Having more than one Outlook contacts folder is a good way to keep work and personal addresses separate. And if you use tools such as Anagram or the LinkedIn toolbar to grab contact details from incoming e-mail, you can use a second contacts list for addresses that might come in handy, but which you don't expect to use very often.
If you synchronise your contacts to a smart phone, having two folders reduces the number of addresses you have to scroll through before finding the right one. And sometimes you'll end up with two lists by accident, such as when you copy information to a different PC. You may also run into problems if you change e-mail accounts.
Only want one folder? Just select all the contacts in the one you don't want and drag them to the file you're keeping. Delete the spare folder once it's empty. But if you're keeping multiple contacts lists, you need to get them in the right order in the Address Book, or things just won't work the way you expect.
Address maker
The Address Book is a hangover from the Personal Address Book in Outlook 97. It's what you see when you click the To button in an e-mail, but you don't need to worry about it unless you're having problems.
If you type the start of a name or e-mail address and then press < Ctrl >-K to activate the Show Names function (see FIGURE 1), Outlook will either fill in the only matching address or give you a list of possible matches; again, this is the Address Book window. You'll also see it when you pick an address to base a Search Folder on.
Open your Outlook Contacts folder then choose Tools-Address Book - or just click the Address Book icon next to the "Find a contact" box on the toolbar. If the addresses you see are different to what you expected, and you can't find contacts when you search, it's probably because the wrong folder is selected.
If you use Microsoft's Exchange Server, you'll see the Global Address Book here, because Outlook assumes you'll mostly be e-mailing people who work in the same company. If not, a Personal Address Book might show up. And if you have multiple contacts folders, Outlook won't automatically show the current one here.
If the list is empty, or you can't find addresses that you know are in your contacts folder, open the Address Book window, choose Tools-Options and then pick the correct folder - see FIGURE 2.
Use the "Keep personal addresses in" option to ensure new contacts go into the folder you want them to. You can also pick which folder to check first when you send e-mail and which to show first when you click To or press < Ctrl >-K.
