E-mail address and fax create two contacts

[Henry Chang]

Hi all,

I created a contact in Outlook 2003, with the e-mail address and the fax
number entered for the same person. But it comes out two contacts with the
same name, one is for the e-mail address and the other for the fax number.
Is there anyway to combine these two in Outlook so that it only shows one
contact in the address book? The users in our company feel very inconvenient
since they have to carefully choose the right one when they mean to send an
e-mail.

Thanks.
Henry Chang

 

[Henry Chang]

We don't need to use fax service directly from Outlook 2003. In this case,
Outlook is primarily used for remembering the fax numbers of the contacts.
Is there anyway to hide the second contact displaying the fax number from
the contact list when we mean to send e-mails?

Thanks.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook considers fax numbers to be valid electronic addresses, since there
are many client- and server-based components that can use such addresses.

One method to hide fax numbers from the address book is to prefix the fax
number with one or more letters (maybe B for business fax, H for home, O for
other). If the fax number begins with a letter, Outlook won't show it in the
address book.

There are a couple of utilities that can help you hide fax numbers from the
address book. See http://www.rsoutlook.com/us/rshifa.htm and
http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook_Solutions.htm (Hide Fax Numbers).

Another way to avoid having fax numbers appear in the address book is
simply not to enter data in the fax fields. Put fax numbers in some other
(non-phone) fields.