# of email addresses per contact?

[MWE]

I am running Outlook2000 under WinXP/SP2.

I am trying to migrate from a PAB and a separate custom DB (Access-based) to
using Contacts. I am having problems with how information is stored and
“displayed†in the Contacts folder:

1. how do I increase the number of email address per person? 3 is
insufficient. I can see how to add fields, but the process does not
distinguish between text fields and “email†fileds; so it is not clear how to
get Outlook to understand that “Email 4†is an email field.

2. when creating a new email, Outlook searches the Contacts folder for
addressees appropriately, but does not correctly display the contact name nor
the email “display nameâ€. For example, the individual’s name is “John Doeâ€
stored and managed as “Doe, Johnâ€. I have two email addresses for this
person: Email: “Doe, John [business]†and Email 2: “Doe, John [home]â€
When these two email records where in my PAB, a “search†would turn up both
items using the “display names†as above. But now that they are in the
Contacts folder, the “search†turns up “John Doe (email)†and “John Doe
(email 2)†This is not very useful. How do I get Outlook to display the
names displayed in the Contacts “General†tab instead of “email†and “email
2�

 

[Brian Tillman]

1. how do I increase the number of email address per person? 3 is
insufficient. I can see how to add fields, but the process does not
distinguish between text fields and “email†fileds; so it is not
clear how to get Outlook to understand that “Email 4†is an email
field.

You can't. Outlook supports three mail address fields. Period.

2. when creating a new email, Outlook searches the Contacts folder
for addressees appropriately, but does not correctly display the
contact name nor the email “display nameâ€. For example, the
individual’s name is “John Doe†stored and managed as “Doe, Johnâ€. I
have two email addresses for this person: Email: “Doe, John
[business]†and Email 2: “Doe, John [home]†When these two email
records where in my PAB, a “search†would turn up both items using
the “display names†as above. But now that they are in the Contacts
folder, the “search†turns up “John Doe (email)†and “John Doe (email
2)†This is not very useful. How do I get Outlook to display the
names displayed in the Contacts “General†tab instead of “email†and
“email 2�

In what mode are you using Outlook 2000? The second line of Help>About will
tell you.

 

[MWE]

You can't. Outlook supports three mail address fields. Period.

[MWE]: is this true for newer versions of Outlook as well. Limiting the
number of email addresses to three is just stupid.

2. when creating a new email, Outlook searches the Contacts folder
for addressees appropriately, but does not correctly display the
contact name nor the email “display nameâ€. For example, the
individual’s name is “John Doe†stored and managed as “Doe, Johnâ€. I
have two email addresses for this person: Email: “Doe, John
[business]†and Email 2: “Doe, John [home]†When these two email
records where in my PAB, a “search†would turn up both items using
the “display names†as above. But now that they are in the Contacts
folder, the “search†turns up “John Doe (email)†and “John Doe (email
2)†This is not very useful. How do I get Outlook to display the
names displayed in the Contacts “General†tab instead of “email†and
“email 2�

In what mode are you using Outlook 2000? The second line of Help>About will
tell you.
--

[MWE] I am running in corporate/workgroup mode (if that is what you mean).
I spent (wasted?) some time in the Outlok Help utility prior to posting
initially. I could not find anything that helped me understand how to
resolve this problem. I went back and read through all the Help on Contacts
and still found nothing. So help me out and tell me the answer.

 

[Brian Tillman]

[MWE]: is this true for newer versions of Outlook as well. Limiting
the number of email addresses to three is just stupid.

Alas, it's true for versions through Outlook 2003. I don't know about
Outlook 2007

[MWE] I am running in corporate/workgroup mode (if that is what you
mean). I spent (wasted?) some time in the Outlok Help utility prior
to posting initially. I could not find anything that helped me
understand how to resolve this problem. I went back and read
through all the Help on Contacts and still found nothing. So help
me out and tell me the answer.

OK, then, click Tools>Services, select the Outlook Address Book service and
click Properties. Change the display order there. I think that's what
you're talking about.

 

[MWE]

see below

[MWE]: is this true for newer versions of Outlook as well. Limiting
the number of email addresses to three is just stupid.

Alas, it's true for versions through Outlook 2003. I don't know about
Outlook 2007

[[MWE]]: Outlook does not seem to care if there is more than one Contact
with identical content for that record. Thus it appears that one could
create as many records as required for, say, "Jones, Ted" each with up to 3
email addresses. Is that the practical workaround?

[MWE] I am running in corporate/workgroup mode (if that is what you
mean). I spent (wasted?) some time in the Outlok Help utility prior
to posting initially. I could not find anything that helped me
understand how to resolve this problem. I went back and read
through all the Help on Contacts and still found nothing. So help
me out and tell me the answer.

OK, then, click Tools>Services, select the Outlook Address Book service and
click Properties. Change the display order there. I think that's what
you're talking about.

[[MWE] ]: I have not made myself clear. That option controls how names are
displayed if one is manuall searching the address book. The choices are
"First Last" or "Last, First". I know about this. I do wish that Outlook
was consistent regarding how things are displayed and once you picked either
"First Last" or "Last, First" that approach was used "everywhere". Further
to that point, even though I have set "Last, First" to be the default
everywhere in Outlook (including the setting you referenced), each time I
create a new Contact I have to override the default for how that record is
managed for that Contact (Outlook wants it to be "First Last"). It is not
hard to set to what I want -- just click on the pull down indicator for "File
As" and select what I want. Is there a way to change the default here? The
options for Contacts are pretty meager.

But back to the original problem ... What I am trying to fix is a bit
different from what you assumed. Assume a given contact (Jones) has multiple
email addresses. If I am creating a new email and type "Jones" into the TO
field and then hit Cntl-K to ask Outlook to find "Jones" (or wait until I am
ready to SEND the message), a little window containing all email addresses
for Jones (presently limited to 3) will be displayed from which I manually
pick the one I want. When using a PAB, the actual Display Names are
presented. Whatever I wanted to use for the Display Name for each email
address was displayed. BUT, when using Contacts, Jones's full name is
displayed (that's helpful because there could be more than one Jones) plus
Email, Email 2 and Email 3. Email, Email 2 and Email 3 do not tell me a lot.
The Display Name is completely ignored. I can right click on any of these
address and navigate to Properties and see the Display Name and actual email
address, but what a pain!

 

[Brian Tillman]

[[MWE] ]: I have not made myself clear. That option controls how
names are displayed if one is manuall searching the address book.
The choices are "First Last" or "Last, First". I know about this. I
do wish that Outlook was consistent regarding how things are
displayed and once you picked either "First Last" or "Last, First"
that approach was used "everywhere". Further to that point, even
though I have set "Last, First" to be the default everywhere in
Outlook (including the setting you referenced), each time I create a
new Contact I have to override the default for how that record is
managed for that Contact (Outlook wants it to be "First Last"). It
is not hard to set to what I want -- just click on the pull down
indicator for "File As" and select what I want. Is there a way to
change the default here? The options for Contacts are pretty meager.

Tools>Options>Contact Options works for me to set the default File As order.

But back to the original problem ... What I am trying to fix is a bit
different from what you assumed. Assume a given contact (Jones) has
multiple email addresses. If I am creating a new email and type
"Jones" into the TO field and then hit Cntl-K to ask Outlook to find
"Jones" (or wait until I am ready to SEND the message), a little
window containing all email addresses for Jones (presently limited to
3) will be displayed from which I manually pick the one I want. When
using a PAB, the actual Display Names are presented. Whatever I
wanted to use for the Display Name for each email address was
displayed. BUT, when using Contacts, Jones's full name is displayed
(that's helpful because there could be more than one Jones) plus
Email, Email 2 and Email 3. Email, Email 2 and Email 3 do not tell
me a lot. The Display Name is completely ignored. I can right click
on any of these address and navigate to Properties and see the
Display Name and actual email address, but what a pain!

The fact is that the Check Names dialogue box just doesn't present the same
type of display, I guess. I don't see any way around it.

 

[MWE]

The fact is that the Check Names dialogue box just doesn't present the same
type of display, I guess. I don't see any way around it.

[[[MWE]]] is there some way to change "Email", "Email 2" and "Email 3" to
names or titles that are more useful?

 

[Brian Tillman]

[[[MWE]]] is there some way to change "Email", "Email 2" and "Email
3" to names or titles that are more useful?

Perhaps the form can be changed, but that's outside of what I know how to
do.