Outlook Contacts 2007 - phone number characters destroyed by Outlook

[crash.report]

I'm using Outlook 2007 to store my contacts.

Because I want to use the phone numbers in my phone to call and I'm on
the gsm network, I need to store the phone numbers in format:

+countrycode_operatorcode_phonenumber

i.e.

+358505555555

However, when I enter such a number in to any of the "Phone Numbers"
fields in Contacts and press "Save & Close", Outlook removes the '+'
characters completely.

If I then sync the contacts to my phone, I can't call any of the
numbers, because the plus characters are gone.

Is there any way to prevent Outlook from automatically meddling with
my phone number input?

I just want it to accept what I input and leave it as it is.

Is there a switch where I can turn all auto-corrections off (I already
tried Options/Editor Options to no avail)?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Rojo Habe]

If you double-click the phone number field a dialog will pop up allowing you
to select Finland as your country, then put the area code and number on the
next two lines. When you click OK it stores it as +358 (505) 555555. This
may not be ideal if your phone can't handle the spaces and parentheses, but
it's worth a try.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

no, you can't turn it off. do you have dialing rules set up in control
panel, modem?

 

[crash.report]

Nothing happens when I double-click any of the fields in Conctacts
(Phone, Mobile Phone, any other field). The same goes for the buttons
in front of the input fields. No pop up window, no options. Nothing.

My "Phone and Modem Options" control panel is set to:

Country: Finland
Area code: <empty>
Outside line: <empty>
Tone dial

There are no other options.

Is there really no way to turn this off?

I mean, gsm is the world's biggest mobile phone network standard and
Outlook in the year 2007 refuses to work with it's dialling prefix
standard?

That sound quite odd to me.

This is a real deal killer to me, if I can't change this. Will have to
dump outlook.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

if it add a +1 to a number in my contacts, it sticks. Outlook uses the
phone number formatting standards in existence when it was developed - it
can't be expected to handle all of the dialing requirement of various phones
that came along since 1996.

Why doesn't the GSM standard allow for the + when it dials? (and ignore ()
if present ) Or... the sync software could make sure it synced numbers in
the format the phone can handle.

also - please include the previous replies so others can follow along with
the thread.

 

[Rojo Habe]

Nothing happens when I double-click any of the fields in Conctacts
(Phone, Mobile Phone, any other field). The same goes for the buttons
in front of the input fields. No pop up window, no options. Nothing.

That's weird. I get it if I double-click the actual white space where you
would type the number, or the button next to it (Business, Home, Business
Fax etc.). Just to clarify, you first double-click the contact to open it
for editing, then double-click the required telephone number field?