How to eliminate default country from appearing in check address .

[drsmyl]

I need to blank out the country selection of the check address dialog box, so
that it doesn't insert "United States of America" into my addresses each time
it comes up. (The country creates a duplicate contact when I hotsynch my palm
using Key Contacts.)

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Post your Outlook version when you have a question.
In older versions there was no way to prevent the country from being
inserted, nor any need to for the most part. Instead, one would control how
the address is inserted in Word by controlling the Address layout.

 

[D Lawrence]

OUTLOOK versions 2000 and up...

Russ (MS),

I notice many complaints here about how "United States of America" becomes
part of OUTLOOK contacts by default. This may be a clumsy feature, not a
bug, for most DESKTOP users, but you (Microsoft) are ignoring the effect it
can have on a significant part of your user-base - the "Road Warriors" - this
is more than a minor nuicance, and we seem to have no sustainable relief or
work-around for it. The clue below is the Palm sync duplcation problem
mentioned by the originator of this thread.

I tried to open up a new suggestion, but this forum refused to cooperate.
This issue really needs to be addressed directly as an Outlook nuisance,
*NOT* assuming that the end-user is only interested in generating clean
labels or Word documents/merges, and that the end-user can simply modify the
merge syntax to eliminate the unwanted output. Any savvy Word user can work
that out.

HOWEVER, when synchronizing Outlook data with PDAs/phones, etc..., having
"United States of America" automatically inserted, sometimes truncated
strangely, is more than just irritating - it is pure clutter and wastes
precious data storage space.

Example - a common address shows up like this when doing basic data entry in
Outlook:
Street Address
City, State Zip00-Code

BUT... In the background Outlook is inserting text into the record, but not
showing it to the users unless they press the [Address...] button to see the
output fields (as interpreted by Outlook):
Street Address
City, State Zip00-Code
United States of America

If a user only types in "New York, NY", Outlook puts the City/State where it
belongs, but it also puts "United States of America" in there. If the user
deletes an old address, "United States of America" stays there.

Yes, end-users can edit the Outlook address content directly, field by
field, but this option is tedious in the extreme, and Outlook often
re-inserts "United States of America" when re-synching from updated PDA/phone
records.

New Outlook records, generated when synchronizing with PDAs/phones, often
show up with strange address syntax inserted:
*** the original address, in well-defined field layout...***
Jane Smythe
Any Street
Some City, ST Zip00-CODE
*** ...becomes one long, unreadable (by Outlook) string.***
Jane Smythe, Any Street, Some City, ST, Zip00-CODE

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE VERSIONS OF OUTLOOK:
Please acknowledge this as a direct and pointed request that the default
content of the Country/Region field (in Outlook entries) be explicitly
user-defined, and not populated or inserted into Contact records by default.
At the very least, offer a way to reduce the default to "U.S.A.", or allow
us any easy means to suppress that field output for any or all non-Word
(publishing) purposes.
One possible rule might be "ONLY specify and fill-in the Country/Region
field for those contacts that do not match your own".

Thanks for reading it all, Russ!!

Post your Outlook version when you have a question.
In older versions there was no way to prevent the country from being
inserted, nor any need to for the most part. Instead, one would control how
the address is inserted in Word by controlling the Address layout.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

I need to blank out the country selection of the check address dialog box,
so
that it doesn't insert "United States of America" into my addresses each
time
it comes up. (The country creates a duplicate contact when I hotsynch my
palm
using Key Contacts.)

 

[Grumpy Granny]

Well said, D Lawrence !
This is not my first day running a computer, however I have managed to avoid
using Outlook until now - 34 years of computer use. The lack of concise
documentation and the abundance of oddities in this database program is
stunning.

OUTLOOK versions 2000 and up...

Russ (MS),

I notice many complaints here about how "United States of America" becomes
part of OUTLOOK contacts by default. This may be a clumsy feature, not a
bug, for most DESKTOP users, but you (Microsoft) are ignoring the effect it
can have on a significant part of your user-base - the "Road Warriors" - this
is more than a minor nuicance, and we seem to have no sustainable relief or
work-around for it. The clue below is the Palm sync duplcation problem
mentioned by the originator of this thread.

I tried to open up a new suggestion, but this forum refused to cooperate.
This issue really needs to be addressed directly as an Outlook nuisance,
*NOT* assuming that the end-user is only interested in generating clean
labels or Word documents/merges, and that the end-user can simply modify the
merge syntax to eliminate the unwanted output. Any savvy Word user can work
that out.

HOWEVER, when synchronizing Outlook data with PDAs/phones, etc..., having
"United States of America" automatically inserted, sometimes truncated
strangely, is more than just irritating - it is pure clutter and wastes
precious data storage space.

Example - a common address shows up like this when doing basic data entry in
Outlook:
Street Address
City, State Zip00-Code

BUT... In the background Outlook is inserting text into the record, but not
showing it to the users unless they press the [Address...] button to see the
output fields (as interpreted by Outlook):
Street Address
City, State Zip00-Code
United States of America

If a user only types in "New York, NY", Outlook puts the City/State where it
belongs, but it also puts "United States of America" in there. If the user
deletes an old address, "United States of America" stays there.

Yes, end-users can edit the Outlook address content directly, field by
field, but this option is tedious in the extreme, and Outlook often
re-inserts "United States of America" when re-synching from updated PDA/phone
records.

New Outlook records, generated when synchronizing with PDAs/phones, often
show up with strange address syntax inserted:
*** the original address, in well-defined field layout...***
Jane Smythe
Any Street
Some City, ST Zip00-CODE
*** ...becomes one long, unreadable (by Outlook) string.***
Jane Smythe, Any Street, Some City, ST, Zip00-CODE

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE VERSIONS OF OUTLOOK:
Please acknowledge this as a direct and pointed request that the default
content of the Country/Region field (in Outlook entries) be explicitly
user-defined, and not populated or inserted into Contact records by default.
At the very least, offer a way to reduce the default to "U.S.A.", or allow
us any easy means to suppress that field output for any or all non-Word
(publishing) purposes.
One possible rule might be "ONLY specify and fill-in the Country/Region
field for those contacts that do not match your own".

Thanks for reading it all, Russ!!