Transferring Address from Outlook to Address - easy way? help pls

[Yaja123]

hi

I switched from pc to apple mac last monday.... yippee. so far so very good. im still at the early stages but im very happy - just love the mac interface, everythings so neat and uniform.

ive transferred files and setup the 15"pb pretty much how i want it...preferences, files, firefox blah blah...but now comes the tricky bits.

one of the perceived tricky bits is transferring my address book from outlook 2003 to address book.... is there an eass way to do this? i dont have hundreds and hundreds of addresses so i could manually move then over a week bit by bit, but is there an easy way?

sorry if this is in the wrong forum but i wasnt sure where to put it.

thanks for your help.

the next step would be sync'ing my motorola v3 phone with the address book.

 

[mkrishnan]

Yes, it is possible to transfer your contacts. I did this, when I first got my Mac, albeit with Office 2k. What it involves is first creating an export file in Outlook and then copying it onto your Mac. Actually, I found this via google, and it seems very informative:

http://www.bsu.edu/web/ucspubs/pdf/outlook/outlook_2003_faq.pdf

That is for how to get contacts *off* of Outlook. At the last step, if you can export as an LDIF file or as a VCard file, then you just go to Address Book and choose File->Import->(LDIF or VCard).

There is also commercial software that automates this, IIRC.

Hope you enjoy your new toy!

 

[ravenvii]

Outlook only exports in CSV or vCard formats. vCard is horribly inconvient because you have to export each address/contact one by one. The way I did it was: Export to CSV, download Mozilla Thunderbird, import CSV in there, then export it as LDIF. Now you have a file that you can import into Address Book.

 

[mkrishnan]

Outlook only exports in CSV or vCard formats. vCard is horribly inconvient because you have to export each address/contact one by one. The way I did it was: Export to CSV, download Mozilla Thunderbird, import CSV in there, then export it as LDIF. Now you have a file that you can import into Address Book.

Come to think of it, I might have used Entourage as an intermediary or something like that, myself. I remember this VCard single-contact issue, now that you mention it....

 

[mkrishnan]

Here is the application I was thinking of -- it actually really seems worth it for $10. Good luck in any event!

http://www.littlemachines.com/

 

[skp574]

Here is the application I was thinking of -- it actually really seems worth it for $10. Good luck in any event!

http://www.littlemachines.com/

I second that. I bought Outlook2Mac and got all my contacts and mail over in no time at all. Well worth the outlay.

 

[superbovine]

Outlook only exports in CSV or vCard formats. vCard is horribly inconvient because you have to export each address/contact one by one. The way I did it was: Export to CSV, download Mozilla Thunderbird, import CSV in there, then export it as LDIF. Now you have a file that you can import into Address Book.

i did it by vcard but i used the actually address book application that comes with windows and did a mass export of vcards then just need a mass import.

 

[kitjack]

And computers are supposed to make things easier? Why can't these rubbish programs talk to each other without all this stupid hassle?

 

[BWhaler]

I second that. I bought Outlook2Mac and got all my contacts and mail over in no time at all. Well worth the outlay.

I third it. The program is awesome and so worth the money it is not even funny.

 

[BWhaler]

And computers are supposed to make things easier? Why can't these rubbish programs talk to each other without all this stupid hassle?

You can thank the monopolist is Redmond for that. They LOOOVE file format lock-in.

 

[superbovine]

And computers are supposed to make things easier? Why can't these rubbish programs talk to each other without all this stupid hassle?

because us programmers live in a world have money, market share, competetion, and standards.

 

[hansen]

I'm in both worlds out of necessity. Anybody have experience with keeping the Mac and Outlook contacts in sync?

 

[mkrishnan]

I'm in both worlds out of necessity. Anybody have experience with keeping the Mac and Outlook contacts in sync?

The only way I have ever done this is to use my Nokia 3650 as a bridge. If you have a handheld that treats contacts nicely on both sides (this one does fairly well, that is, it handles all the basic fields, although probably not everything that is in Outlook), then this approach is viable. But you should still probably mentally designate one computer to be primary and assume the other one may be flawed.

Alternatively, can you use Entourage?

 

[superbovine]

The only way I have ever done this is to use my Nokia 3650 as a bridge. If you have a handheld that treats contacts nicely on both sides (this one does fairly well, that is, it handles all the basic fields, although probably not everything that is in Outlook), then this approach is viable. But you should still probably mentally designate one computer to be primary and assume the other one may be flawed.

Alternatively, can you use Entourage?

An imap instead of pop account wouldn't hurt as well. that way all you mail remains on the server.