trouble with 'business fax'

[Karen]

Hello,

I've ran into the same problem a few times in Microsoft Outlook 2003 (on
WindowsXP system). I create a folder that contains contacts (in this case
in the 'All Public Folders' section in order to share with colleagues). I
include a variety of information, contact name, email address, business
phone and fax numbers, etc. In the 'Properties' dialogue, I tell Outlook to
"Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book" so that it's available to me
when I click on "To:" in a new email message.

The resulting list shows two of every contact, one with an email address and
one with a fax number. This prevents me from using the shift key to select
the entire list. I need to use the Ctrl key and select the email addresses
individually. This is okay in a folder with only a handful of entries. But
some of the folders I need to create contain upwards of 50-60 contacts. Is
there a way to 'weed' out the business fax entries, with actually removing
the business fax information? To get around this, I've been creating two
folders, one that includes the business fax number and one that doesn't.
This is very awkward to maintain and update (since everything needs to be
done twice).

I use Outlook only for email, not faxing. I connect to the Internet over a
network, not with a modem.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Karen )

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook considers fax numbers to be valid electronic addresses, since there
are many client- and server-based components that can use such addresses.

One method to hide fax numbers from the address book is to prefix the fax
number with one or more letters (maybe B for business fax, H for home, O for
other). If the fax number begins with a letter, Outlook won't show it in the
address book. This definitely works in Outlook 2000 and 2002.

There are a couple of utilities that can help you hide fax numbers from the
address book. See http://www.rsoutlook.com/us/rshifa.htm and
http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook_Solutions.htm (Hide Fax Numbers).

Another way to avoid avoid having fax numbers appear in the address book is
simply not to enter data in the fax fields. Put fax numbers in some other
(non-phone) fields.