Export from Office for Windows: Outlook Journal

[T. Wise]

I'm a very long-term PC person who has grown weary of Windows. I have a
Powerbook G4 running Tiger that I like a lot, and am seriously considering
using it for more than just music and video, but for everything. It's
daunting thinking about transferring everything over, but I know that most
of my applications (Word, Excel, Quicken, etc.) have strong Apple versions,
so they shouldn't be a problem.

The scary thing is Outlook. I know I can transfer years of email,
appointments, tasks, and contacts into Entourage (or the Apple apps), but
there's one enormous wrinkle: Outlook Journal. It's an Outlook function for
what are basically dated notes assigned to categories. I use Journal for
logging and keeping track of everything I do during the day - phone calls,
work done, mail sent, notes from meetings, etc. I haven't yet found an app
to export these Journal items into, and that's the last hurdle keeping me
from migrating.

BTW, I know I can export Journal items into an Excel or Access file, or a
comma separated values (DOS or Windows) file, but that's not the right place
to keep these info. I'm looking for a Mac application I can import all
these individual notes into.

Anyone have any thoughts?

thanks in advance

t

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I'm a very long-term PC person who has grown weary of Windows. I have a
Powerbook G4 running Tiger that I like a lot, and am seriously considering
using it for more than just music and video, but for everything. It's
daunting thinking about transferring everything over, but I know that most
of my applications (Word, Excel, Quicken, etc.) have strong Apple versions,
so they shouldn't be a problem.

The scary thing is Outlook. I know I can transfer years of email,
appointments, tasks, and contacts into Entourage (or the Apple apps), but
there's one enormous wrinkle: Outlook Journal. It's an Outlook function for
what are basically dated notes assigned to categories. I use Journal for
logging and keeping track of everything I do during the day - phone calls,
work done, mail sent, notes from meetings, etc. I haven't yet found an app
to export these Journal items into, and that's the last hurdle keeping me
from migrating.

BTW, I know I can export Journal items into an Excel or Access file, or a
comma separated values (DOS or Windows) file, but that's not the right place
to keep these info. I'm looking for a Mac application I can import all
these individual notes into.

There is no such Mac application. Accept it.

Forget Access (also not on the Mac), but if you can export your Journal
items to Excel and CSV files, there's surely some way you can use it on the
Mac. Presumably the "columns" represent Date, Content, and Category - or is
there more than that? It would not be too difficult to write an AppleScript
for importing such an Excel or CSV file into Entourage Notes. You could then
sort the Notes list by Date or by Category, as it suits you, and/or - make
custom views for each category which then can be sorted by Date.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[T. Wise]

Yes, the exported Journal items in CSV or Excel format have the following
columns: Date, Type (i.e., phone call, meeting, note, email, etc.), Subject,
Category and Body (which is the text of the item).

If I could automatically get these into Entourage Notes, that could work. I
don't yet know enough AppleScript - what's the best way for me to learn it?

And thanks.

 

[T. Wise]

Another question:

When I import into an Entourage Note, Entourage creates a DATE entry, based
on the date the item was created in Entourage. This, needless to say, will
obliviate all the dates the original items were created in Outlook, which
are the dates I'd want to keep. Is there anyway I can either a) edit the
Entourage date to make it the original Outlook creation date, or b) create a
new custom column into which I can insert the original Outlook creation
dates?

Thanks in advance,

t