Phone number format in Outlook contacts

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singapore tom

After re-instlling Outlook my phone numbers in my contacts changed format.
It used to be 123-345-5678
now it is (123) 345-5678
How can I change it back?
Dermot
 
Russ Valentine said:
You can't. Masking of phone numbers is hard coded.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
singapore tom said:
After re-instlling Outlook my phone numbers in my contacts changed
format. It used to be 123-345-5678
now it is (123) 345-5678
How can I change it back?
Dermot
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Out of interest, is that something new since OL2000?

I store all my number is standard format beginning with the country
code (+XXX - YYY YYY YYY) where XXX is the country code such as +44
for the UK.

If I upgrade is OL going to try and convert them all to some
provincial format?

Thanks,

Alan.
 
It's not new. In some versions you could circumvent the masking by
configuring a null dialing location, but current OS don't let you do that.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
Alan said:
Russ Valentine said:
You can't. Masking of phone numbers is hard coded.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
singapore tom said:
After re-instlling Outlook my phone numbers in my contacts changed
format. It used to be 123-345-5678
now it is (123) 345-5678
How can I change it back?
Dermot
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Out of interest, is that something new since OL2000?

I store all my number is standard format beginning with the country
code (+XXX - YYY YYY YYY) where XXX is the country code such as +44
for the UK.

If I upgrade is OL going to try and convert them all to some
provincial format?

Thanks,

Alan.
Click to expand...
 
While I wouldn't call the format "provincial", Outlook will try and format
phone numbers to the form

+CC (AAA) NNN-NNNN

Where CC is the country code, AAA is the area code (not necessarily three
digits) and NNN-NNNN is the rest.

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights


Russ Valentine said:
You can't. Masking of phone numbers is hard coded.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
singapore tom said:
After re-instlling Outlook my phone numbers in my contacts changed
format. It used to be 123-345-5678
now it is (123) 345-5678
How can I change it back?
Dermot
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Out of interest, is that something new since OL2000?

I store all my number is standard format beginning with the country
code (+XXX - YYY YYY YYY) where XXX is the country code such as +44
for the UK.

If I upgrade is OL going to try and convert them all to some
provincial format?

Thanks,

Alan.
Click to expand...
 
[snippage restored]
After re-instlling Outlook my phone numbers in my contacts changed format.
It used to be 123-345-5678
now it is (123) 345-5678
How can I change it back?
Click to expand...

That's not my experience. I can format telephone numbers in Outlook's
Contacts any way I like.
Click to expand...
 
Good for you!
Provide the instructions and the evidence that you are different from the
rest of us.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
Michael Bednarek said:
[snippage restored]
After re-instlling Outlook my phone numbers in my contacts changed format.
It used to be 123-345-5678
now it is (123) 345-5678
How can I change it back?
Click to expand...

That's not my experience. I can format telephone numbers in Outlook's
Contacts any way I like.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Good for you!
Provide the instructions and the evidence that you are different from the
rest of us.
Click to expand...

My testing was somewhat incomplete: I can enter numbers which don't
conform to my country's standard to any format I like, but standard
numbers will indeed be formatted by Outlook.

E.g.: for Australia where we have standard 8-digit numbers, if I enter a
7-digit number (or anything less or more than 8), I can format it with
spaces or dashes or whatever, but 8-digit numbers will be formatted "(a)
nnnn-nnnn" most of the time.

However, if I enter the number as "nn nn nn nn", not a particularly
useful format, it will stay that way. Same for "nnn nnn nn" or
"nnn-nn-nnn": they will stay. In short, only if I enter "nnnnnnnn" or
"nnnnXnnnn" (where X can be space or full stop) it will be reformatted
as "(a) nnnn-nnnn"; other characters for X result in rather bizarre
formatting.

But, as the article at <http://www.slipstick.com/config/olphone.htm>
points out, preceding the number with a comma (or a single or a double
quote) will protect your formatting.

It seems I spoke too soon and we have yet another case of "Microsoft
software overriding what the user enters - *we* know best". They call it
Intellisense - I call it unwanted intrusion.

I apologize for my sloppy testing.
 
No apology necessary. I was just hoping someone had figured out a workaround
for this since it's such a frequent request.
 
Russ Valentine said:
No apology necessary. I was just hoping someone had figured out a
workaround for this since it's such a frequent request.
Click to expand...

Hi Russ,

I always enter all phone numbers in standard format (+CCC - AAA - NNN
NNNN) where CCC is the country code, AAA is the area code, and NNN is
the local number (number of digits in each section may vary, but the
dashes signify the boundaries).

This always seems to stick without OL (97 and 2000 at least) giving an
opinion and making any changes.

In terms of dialling (if you use an autodialler or something), the
phone systems in the UK and NZ at least will accept a full number
format even if you are actually just calling next door - it does not
seem unreasonable to guess that the systems in most (developed)
countries would be able to handle this too?

In other words, I could be sitting in Auckland, dialling a friend next
door, and my PC will dial (+64 - 9 - 123 4567) where the + would be
dependent upon your choice of phone system and telecom provider (e.g.
1 for an outside line, 0 to get outside the local area, and another 0
to get outside the national network) and it would work fine, even
though a human would just dial (1 - 123 - 4567).

No guarantees elsewhere, but it works for me in those two countries at
least and if you don't use autodialling, the format should work
everywhere I would imagine.

I guess it all comes down to how much you want to circumvent OL's
attempts to use the provincial format.

Hope that helps,

Alan.
 
As far as dialing is concerned there is no need to circumvent Outlook's
masking. Outlook uses standard format. The people who request changing this
masking are users who think Outlook should also be able to conform to
whatever format their portable phone wants them to use. I'm not sure how
realistic that request is. I only know it is a frequent one.
 
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