data corrections/updates in Outlook Contacts--must be a better way

[Michael Bierman]

I would like to change the "Company" field for about 400 contacts to a
specific value. I thought I would just export the records, add the data and
re-import, but that seems to be problematic. For one, the export formats
while easy enough to edit has the format below

[record 1]
Field1:<tab>data
Field2:<tab>data
Field3:<tab>data

[record 2]
Field1:<tab>data
Field3:<tab>data
Field5:<tab>data


Easy enough to edit, but not useful for importing. So I did some
manipulation on the text file and got

[record 1]Field1:<tab>data, Field2:<tab>data, Field3:<tab>data
[record 2] Field1:<tab>data, Field3:<tab>data, Field5:<tab>data

But that doesn't help either because 1) outlook doesn't like the tabbed
values 2) I can't do a global mapping of the fields because the order will
vary depending on the record 3) the titles are in the way. I realize 1 and
3 can be solved--I can delete them from the data set before importing them,
but 2 seems somewhat intractable.

I wonder if there is an easier way. Is there a Macro that can replace the
value of a field in an isolated collection of contacts?

Many thanks.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

What format did you export to? If you're going to export, then import, a
comma-delimited or Excel file is probably the best.

See http://www.outlookcode.com/d/code/convertfields.htm for a simple code
sample you may be able to adapt to perform the update on the existing items.

 

[Michael Bierman]

What format did you export to? If you're going to export, then import, a
comma-delimited or Excel file is probably the best.

Sue,

Many thanks! I somehow overlooked the options in the export step that allow
you to do the kind of export I needed. Needless to say that solved the
problems (after I installed the excel import package).

Again, many thanks!

Michael