Cannot import contacts into Outlook 2003

[R.C.]

Hi, I need to export all my contacts from Lotus Notes 6 and import them into
Outlook 2003. I don't think I am doing either the export or the import
correctly, and eventually get a Translation Error message. Can someone walk
me through it or point me to a great resource? Thanks.

 

[Karl Timmermans]

How to migrate your Lotus Notes contacts to Outlook 2003:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912804

For any additional help/answers, you'll need to provide the <exact> steps
you took before anyone can determine what the cause of the "Translation
Error" is that you're getting (and don't be bashful with details if the
above KB article doesn't resolve your problem).

Karl
___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[R.C.]

Thank you, Karl. Here goes:
1. In Lotus Notes 6, select all Contacts in my Address Book.
2. File ... Export ...
3. Choose where to save file, and file name.
Save as type: Lotus 1-2-3
Structured Text
Tabular Text
vCard 2.1
vCard 3.0
(I chose Tabular Text.)
Tabular Text Export menu opens.
4. How Much to Export
All documents
Selected documents
(I chose Selected documents.)
Export Character Set
Default character set
International (UTF-8)
Unicode
(I chose Default character set.)
Detail to Incorporate
Include View titles
(I did not check the box to include View titles.)
=> Successfully exported (size 154 KB)
(The filename has no extension on it.)
5. Copied file onto USB key drive.
6. Copied file from USB drive into desktop of PC w/ Outlook on it.
7. From MS Outlook 2003 SP3:
File ...
Import and Export ...
Import from another program or file ...
Select file type to import from ...
(I selected Tab Separated Values (Windows).)
File to import: -----
(Windows can't find the file, so I added a .txt file extension to its
filename.)
(I selected Allow duplicates to be created.)
Select destination folder
(I chose my Contacts folder in my Personal Folders in Outlook.)

Translation Error
A file error has occurred in the Tab Separated Values (Windows)
translator while initializing a translator to build a field map.

Outlook was unable to retrieve the data from the file -----.txt.
Verify that you have the correct file, that you have permission to open it,
and that it is not open in another program.

(Karl, this is the same error message I get no matter what I try:
tab-separated, comma-separated, .txt, .csv, Include View titles, etc. No
matter, I get the same error message every attempt. Yet I am able to open
some but not all of the file in Excel and it is legible; so it isn't that
the file is Read-only or something.)

Thank you for your help.

 

[Karl Timmermans]

On the assumption that your Outlook config (import/export filters) is not
corrupted in some way and assuming you exported a tab delimited text file,
if I was a betting person - odds on favorite for cause of error is either a
1) "field name" issue or 2) file construct issue.

You can try one of 2 suggestions

Option #1

#1 - Create a Tab Delimited text file (Tabular Text)
#2 - Download CG DataPorter (actually CG Importer should also do the same
thing) and import the file using CGD
(http://www.contactgenie.com/cg20dlorder.htm) - one of 2 two things will
happen:
a) not going to like the file and should pinpoint why
b) you'll see all the field names and which ones have characters
replaced with an "*" in the name - one of those is likely what's causing
Outlook to choke
* this is not to import all of your data - just to see what CGD reports. If
it's a field name issue, you can edit your text file to fix whatever comes
up and then proceed with importing using Outlook's import/export wizard
** if, in the unlikely case, that CGD has a problem with your tab-delim
file - don't hesitate to contact us (support AT contactgenie.com) - you'll
be asked to send us the file for testing at which point it usually only
takes us a few minutes to isolate the exact cause (and an update would
follow very soon afterwards to deal with any new case scenario).

Option #2

#1 - Save your contacts as vCards
#2 - Use a 3rd party program to import them - one solution for this can be
found here (link provided for info only - not associated with us)
http://vcard4outlook.4team.biz/

Karl

___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[R.C.]

Thanks again, Karl. Unfortunately the Contact Genie was way too advanced for
me, but the vCard option worked very well. Can't thank you enough.