Using Outlook 2003 Contacts as Word's Address Book

[Bob Penoyer]

I'm using Office 2003. I want to use Outlook's Contacts to address
envelopes and labels in Word. But I'm having a problem.

In Word, when I select Tools > Letters and Mailings > Envelopes and
Labels then click on the Insert Address icon, I get this warning:

"Address Book failure: 'Unspecified error'. Check your Mail setup. You
must have Extended MAPI version 1.0 or higher to use this feature."

How can I get around this problem and use Outlook's Contacts?

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Are you using Outlook 2003 and is it set as your default mail client?

Do you know you can select the contacts in Outlook and begin the merge using
Tools, mail merge?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)



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[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Is Outlook your default Email program and Contacts Manager?
Does your Outlook profile have the Outlook Address Book Service installed
and configured correctly?

 

[mab]

Same problem here, but I've been initiating the mail
merge from Word and cannot get a link to Outlook Contacts
folder. Error message ' "This operation cannot be
completed because of dialog or database engine
failtures. Please try again." I guess these Christmas
cards won't be in the post very soon! Let me know what
you hear regarding your problem, OK?

 

[Bob Penoyer]

Is Outlook your default Email program and Contacts Manager?

No. Does it have to be? I favor Eudora and expect to continue using
that.

Does your Outlook profile have the Outlook Address Book Service installed
and configured correctly?

I don't know. How can I do that?

This all seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Outlook has a list of
contacts in a file somewhere. All I want Word to do is access that
information. Is there a straightforward way to do that?

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Only by doing what I posted. You cannot mail merge to Outlook if Eudora is
your messaging program. You can always change it back after you do the
merge.

 

[Bob Penoyer]

Only by doing what I posted.

You've lost me. What did you post.

You cannot mail merge to Outlook if Eudora is
your messaging program.

I don't want to do mail merge. I simply want to select

Tools > Letters and Mailings > Envelopes and Labels

then select an address from a list.

Is this the same as Mail Merge? One thing I should mention is that I
was able to do the above selection of saved addresses when I was using
Office 97. But with Office 2003, I can't do it. Help!

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Insert Address from Outlook uses the same messaging transports as doing a
mail merge. That's why you need to do what I posted in my response: make
Outlook your default program for mail and Contacts and make sure you added
the Outlook Address Book to your profile.

 

[Bob Penoyer]

make
Outlook your default program for mail and Contacts and make sure you added
the Outlook Address Book to your profile.

Okay. How do I do these two things?

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

1. Control Panel > Internet Options
2. Go to Tools | E-mail accounts, select "View or change existing
directories or address books", and click OK. If you don't see the OAB in the
Directories and Address Books list, click the Back button, then select "Add
a new directory or address book", then "Additional Address Books", and add
the OAB. Then keep clicking Back until you get back to the first dialog
box, and go back to the Directories and Address Books list as you did
earlier. Once the OAB appears in the list, select it and then click Change
to make sure the Contacts folder(s) you want to display are listed. If any
of them aren't listed, you'll need to enable those Contacts folders as
Outlook Address Books by right clicking the folder, selecting Properties,
clicking the Outlook Address Book tab, and checking the "Show this folder as
an E-mail address book" box. Make sure you restart Outlook after making
these changes.