Making custom form default for contacts

[Fred Boer]

Hello:

I am a beginner with Outlook. I am a new hire in a department that uses
Outlook contact information in a Word Mail Merge process. I am teaching
myself how this all works, and have been doing ok, but I am struggling with
forms, particularly the form used for contacts. I don't have any problems
modifying the form (for example to add FirstName and LastName fields), but I
am very confused about how to get Outlook to use my modified form instead of
the default custom contacts form.

It seems to me that this should be a simple property setting, but I've had
no luck tinkering with the various menu options. I've seen post suggesting
registry changes are needed. Is it really this complicated to make my form
the default? Any links to a tutorial on how to do this? Thanks!

 

[Fred Boer]

Ok, I am closer... I was confused by the behaviour of the forms. I *have*
been able to modify a form and then set it as the default. I have tested
this and when I add a new contact, the modified form is used. BUT... when I
click on an *existing* contact, it doesn't use the new "default" form, but
uses a different (older) form. Shouldn't all contacts use the "default"
form? This behaviour had convinced me that my forms weren't being used as
the "default" - when older contacts didn't display using the modified form,
I assumed the "default" had not been set.

So, does setting the "default" form only apply then to new contacts? If so,
how do I force/import the older contacts to use the new form?

Thanks!
Fred

 

[Karl Timmermans]

A contact is assigned a "MessageClass" at the time of creation (the
<default> for the folder) which is used when the item is displayed. You'll
need a 3rd party utility to change the MessageClass for any contacts that
existed prior to changing the <Default> for the folder. Either of the 2 free
utilities below will do what you need:

ContactGenie Message Class Modifier
http://www.contactgenie.com/cgtmcm.htm

DocMessageClass
http://www.publicshareware.com/public-share-outlook-utilities.php

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

 

[Fred Boer]

Dear Karl:

Thank you very much. I will be trying this out later today. Obviously the
forms in Outlook are quite unlike forms I am used to in Microsoft Access!

Cheers!
Fred

 

[Fred Boer]

Thank you for telling me about this - and for making it available! Worked
great!

Fred