Editing Default Contact Form

[Chaplain Doug]

Outlook 2003. After having read some other posts I am only more confused.
No one post answers the questions I have. I wish to reword my questions.

1. How may I edit the default contact form? I see that I cannot edit the
General tab, but can edit the Detail tab?

2. How may I ensure that the edited default form is then used for not only
new contacts, but also when displaying the contacts that already exist?

3. These contacts are in a public folder (served by Exchange). How may I
make the edited default contact form come up for anyone that accesses the
contacts in the shared folder?

Thanks and God bless for the help.
--
Dr. Doug Pruiett
Good News Jail & Prison Ministry
www.goodnewsjail.org

P.S. Please forgive the inconvenience. I know that I have posted this same
question in two forums. I do not know how to "cross-post" as has been
suggested to me in the past.

 

[Sachin Sancheti]

1. We can edit the General tab as well.What exactly you are looking for
in edit. I am sure you are opening the default contact form then
tools->design this form, should give you a desing mode of the defautl
contact form.

2.To set the custom form as default form for the new contacts
Right click on the Contacts folder go to properties on the general tab
look for "When posting to this folder, use" click on the drop down next
to it. Select forms and browse to your custom contact forms. Apply.
Now, when you create a new cotact it should open the custom contact
form instead of default one. To use the custom contact form for the
already saved contacts , not a logical solution as you might have
different fields which may not exists on the default contact forms
which were already saved.
Still, you could change the message class of the already saved contacts
to your custom message class using VBA macro. This is something like
hack not a logical solution.

3.Same as step 2, instead of contacts folder right click on the public
contact foler.

Hope this helps...

 

[Chaplain Doug]

Thank you Sanchin. I was able to edit the default contact form, but it
removed the picture control. This "feature" has been pointed out elsewhere
in this forum. How can I get the picture control back?

Also, can you suggest some code to change the class for my existing contacts
once I create a custom form? Thanks.

 

[Eric Legault [MVP - Outlook]]

To change the message class of existing forms to a new one, try any of the
suggestions in this article:

How to update existing items in an Outlook folder to use a new custom form:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/201087/en-us

 

[drewsimm]

I am eaves dropping on this post, but I went to the link below and it says it
is for Outlook 2000. Will it work for 2003?

So, let me get this straight.... I can change the look of my contacts, so
that when I create a new contact, it will have the fields that I want in the
locations that I want. THEN, in order to change all my existing contacts to
that same format (I have almost 1,000), all I have to do is create that
script that your post points to and it will change all of my existing
contacts to my new format. Is that all correct?

Also, this is ALL exportable to Excel, so I can query my contacts with the
fields that I have chosen/created, correct?

Thanks,
Andy

 

[Eric Legault [MVP - Outlook]]

Yes, the form class update procedure will work with OL 2000 or greater, and
will convert your Contacts that use the default form to use your custom form.

Contacts can be exported to .csv or Excel file formats using the
Import/Export wizard, but custom fields will NOT be exported.

--
Eric Legault (Outlook MVP, MCDBA, old school WOSA MCSD, B.A.)
Try Picture Attachments Wizard for Outlook:
http://www.collaborativeinnovations.ca
Blog: http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault/