Cannot reverse an Export from Outlook to CSV

[James Henderson]

I cannot reverse an Export from Outlook to CSV

Before I did the export, only the contact email address (e-mail address removed)
appeares in the E-mail field, and a name in the the "Display as:" field.

The word SMTP comes up if I double click the E-mail field for editing,
when a grayed-out "E-mail type:" shows it to be SMTP.

I exported my Outlook 2002 Contacts to a CSV file. In the column headed
"E-mail" Outlook 2002 puts three items:

1. E-mail address
2. Then the word "SMTP" (without quotes)
3. And then the "Display as:" field (usually the full name and the
address again)

These appear all in the one column, NOT IN three separate columns.
It seems that the "Address", SMTP, and "Display as:" become one field.

The column looks something like
E-mail
(e-mail address removed) SMTP Doug Peterson ([email protected])
[THIS IS A FAKE EMAIL ADDRESS]

When I re-imported the 856 contacts back into Outlook, only modifying
the Business FAX column to include an aphabetic character so that there
are not two entries for each contact, all the Email addresses are messed
up. E-mail entry nows contains all three of the fields above, NOT just the
E-mail field. KB Article 305361 descibes how to do this.

What did I do wrong? How should the E-mail field in Outlook 2002 look in
the CSV file? How can I recover my E-mail addresses? Help!!!!!

 

[Chris]

I have no idea why the export choked, but the "E-mail Address", "E-mail Type" and "E-mail Display Name" should all be individual fields not one field. I usually recommend doing any import procedures into a new test folder to test the import and then copy the data from the test folder to the original location once it's deemed okay. Of course this is not going to help you any at this point. You could try exporting the folder again (which is now hosed) and try fixing the problem in Excel manually. It's going to be slow and tedious, but that's going to be the only option if you don't have a backup of the PST file (or mailbox if on an Exchange server). I'd recommend creating a new contact folder (right click the contacts folder and choose "New Folder" - make sure it's configured for Contacts), create a dummy contact in it, and then export it. With it you will be able to see the correct format for the "hosed" export. Then it's going to be a lot of cut and paste in Excel

Chris

 

[James Henderson]

I have done a little testing. The Contacts actually seem to work, although
they do not appear in the "TO:" field. It I click "NEW" then "TO" then
"CONTACTS" then click on any contact with the "three fields in Email"
Outlook will place a single period in the "TO" field. Clicking "SEND" gets
no error and the message goes. At the other end, it comes in with the Email
Address and SMTP " TO <[email protected] SMTP>" but "TO: ." at my
end.

It appears that Outlook is able to ignore the SMTP and send it to the Email
address, but Outllook is not able to show the address or name in the "TO:"
field of the message itself. I tried getting rid of all the extra fields (in
Excel) and reimporting that back into Outlook, but Outlook did not seem to
like that either. Do you know of some KB article or some source that can
explain what Outlook can import? What's seems odd to me is that the "E-mail
Address", "E-mail Type", and "Display As" are not column headings in the CSV
output, even though they appear in separate fields when you look at the
Contacts.

I would not suggest using Windows CSV as an export format after my
experience, but I am not sure what else to use.

I have no idea why the export choked, but the "E-mail Address", "E-mail

Type" and "E-mail Display Name" should all be individual fields not one
field. I usually recommend doing any import procedures into a new test
folder to test the import and then copy the data from the test folder to the
original location once it's deemed okay. Of course this is not going to help
you any at this point. You could try exporting the folder again (which is
now hosed) and try fixing the problem in Excel manually. It's going to be
slow and tedious, but that's going to be the only option if you don't have a
backup of the PST file (or mailbox if on an Exchange server). I'd recommend
creating a new contact folder (right click the contacts folder and choose
"New Folder" - make sure it's configured for Contacts), create a dummy
contact in it, and then export it. With it you will be able to see the
correct format for the "hosed" export. Then it's going to be a lot of cut
and paste in Excel.

 

[James Henderson]

Guess what? Exporting and re-importing the Contacts (twice) cleaned it up.
The first try cleaned up most of the erroneous text and the second cleaned
up the rest. I still say that it's a pretty weak set of code that can't
re-import the same file that was just exported. Thanks for the suggestion.
Do you know of any way to check my spelling in the Contacts? The only way I
know is to export it to a text file, open it in Word or Excel, and then try
to bring it back in.

I have no idea why the export choked, but the "E-mail Address", "E-mail

Type" and "E-mail Display Name" should all be individual fields not one
field. I usually recommend doing any import procedures into a new test
folder to test the import and then copy the data from the test folder to the
original location once it's deemed okay. Of course this is not going to help
you any at this point. You could try exporting the folder again (which is
now hosed) and try fixing the problem in Excel manually. It's going to be
slow and tedious, but that's going to be the only option if you don't have a
backup of the PST file (or mailbox if on an Exchange server). I'd recommend
creating a new contact folder (right click the contacts folder and choose
"New Folder" - make sure it's configured for Contacts), create a dummy
contact in it, and then export it. With it you will be able to see the
correct format for the "hosed" export. Then it's going to be a lot of cut
and paste in Excel.