Relationship between contacts & address book(s) (All)

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Does anyone have a link to where I can learn about the relationship between my Outlook contacts and Outlook address books? I am trying to find answers to the following (and more) questions.

Is it the same thing? Which does email use – contacts or address book? Can I have more than one address book? If so, why would I? My contacts are displayed and sorted by last name, first name…. when I am sending email and click on the To: box, I get a list of names displayed and sorted as first name last name… Why? How can I change this?

I don’t mean to ramble but I get a little frustrated and reading the MS website info doesn’t seem to provide any help. Thank you

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A whole bunch off issues that frequently come up. Here are some of them, post back if you need more specifics. Menus are mostly in terms of Outlook 2000 and Outlook XP, ’98 and ’97 may vary.

1. A contact Folder is only an address list service if you make it one. In 2000, and XP, right click the Contact folder and select Properties, select the Outlook Address Book tab, check the box “Show this folder as an address list”. Then open your address lists by clicking on the Address Book Icon, and select Tools | Options | Add, add the Contact list.

2. You can have multiple address books, including Personal Address Books, which are in a separate file. You can add a PAB through Tools, Services, Add in Corporate Mode in 2000, ’97, or ’98. See Help on this if you are using 2000 ’97 or ’98 in Internet Mode Only. Someone will have to remind us both how to create a PAB in XP, I don’t have access to XP right now, but I think it’s under the File, Manage Files menu.

3. To change the First/Last Sort Order for appearance in the Address List “To” dialog, open your address lists again by clicking on the Address Book Icon, and select Tools | Options | select the address list, click Properties, check the Show Names By button.

Hope this gets you started.

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I guess i still don’t understand this. I am using Outlook 2007 now and have the same issues. Specifically, when I start a new email, I can start to type the name in the To: box and sometimes it will resolve correctly and sometimes not. For example, my son, David, I will type D and his name will appear several time since he has multiple email addresses in his contact record. However, my wife, Diep, does not appear; if I type ‘ it will appear as ‘ndsadler’. When I open the address book, I see entries of phone numbers when all I want is names and emails. I have looked at the contact records for both of these people and see no difference other than, obviously, content.

is there any way to delete the current address book and start over or go into the address book and edit the entries to match what I want?

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The names that appear when you start typing in the To:, Cc: or Bcc: box don’t come from your address book but from the so-called nickname list. You can delete a single nickname by selecting it in the list and presssing the Delete key.
You can get rid of the entire nickname list by deleting the file with extension .nk2 that belongs to your e-mail profile. It’s located in

C:Documents and SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook

under Windows XP, and I assume in

C:UsersAppDataMicrosoftOutlook

under Windows Vista. You should quit all instances of Outlook before deleting the .nk2 file.
Outlook will automatically start rebuilding the nickname list as you send and receive e-mails.

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For Outlook 2007 on a Vista machine, the .NK2 file is in c:Usersuser-nameAppDataRoamingMicrosoftOutlook.

Note: You must have “Show hidden files and folders” selected in Windows Explorer | Organize | Folder and Search Options | View.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks for the correction!
(I don’t have Vista myself)

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Found it. So it is not a problem to delete this?

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You can delete the .nk2 file safely. You will lose ALL nicknames, so if you start typing in the To:, Cc: or Bcc: box in Outlook, nothing will be suggested, until Outlook has started rebuilding the nickname list again (which it will do automatically).

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If you delete the file you will not have any Autocomplete names. Outlook will automatically start with an empty file and begin to fill it with name you use. See Using the automatic name fill-in feature (AutoComplete) – Outlook – Microsoft Office Online and Where does Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 save my information and configurations? – Outlook – Microsoft Office Online for more information.

Joe

--Joe

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Just one additonal note – Outlook will build nicknames from what you enter in the To: line. If you enter ndsadler@domain.com Outlook will learn that nickname, even though the contact name is Diep Sadler. You can teach Outlook to learn the Contact name as nickname by using Ctrl-K to resolve the name against the address book, or (less efficiently) by populating addresses from the Contacts list by clicking on the To button. Just how Outlook uses Autocomplete for nicknames, and Autoresolve for resolving an address to Contacts is a bit mysterious. The two options are found under the same dialog, Tools | Options | Email Options | Advanced Email Options:

Automatic Name Checking is autoresolve
Suggest names while completing…(etc) is autocomplete

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I’m not sure I understand the difference – or when it is important. Sounds llike the same thing to me unless autocomplete subsequently calls autoresolve… all transparent to the user.

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I’m not sure Microsoft understands it either. Autocomplete attempts to match email addresses you have used before. Autoresolve attempts to find match an address to a Display As name in your Address Book(s).

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John,

Just an FYI. The “How Does Autocomplete Work?” section in the article Using the automatic name fill-in feature (AutoComplete) – Outlook – Microsoft Office Online says:

The AutoComplete feature is turned on by default, and displays suggestions for names as you type them in the following situations:

To, Cc, and Bcc boxes in an e-mail message.
To boxes in meeting requests, tasks, and share requests.
E-mail field in a contact card.
…
The AutoComplete feature will remember what you typed the next time you type that name.

Joe

--Joe

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