Translation Error – exporting Outlook contacts (Office 2000 SP2)

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This deals with both Outlook 2000 and Access 2000.

Trying to export Outlook contacts to an Access database format. From Outlook, select Import and Export from File menu, choose Export to a file, choose Microsoft Access as the format, choose the contact folder, choose the place to store the .mdb. Click Finish and I get the following error:

An ODBC error has occurred in the Microsoft Access translator while opening a file to build a field map.
[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source not found and no default driver specified.

I’ve done the detect and repair feature on Outlook, but not on Access yet. Not thinking that would help anyway. Has anyone had this error before? Any resolution? Operating system is Windows 2000.

thanks.
Sarah

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Sarah:

I’ve not run into that particular error, and so can’t offer any advice on how to overcome it. However, I can perhaps help you achieve your goal. I’d say your two best options are to:

(1) Go though the File -> Import and Export… menu option in Outlook, but export to a common third format, say Excel or a comma separated values file, then import that resulting file into Access.
(2) Link directly to the Contacts list you’re concerned with. In Access, choose to link a new table. When prompted for the file, look in the Files of type… drop box for “Exchange()”. Once you choose that option, a Link Exchange/Outlook Wizard will fire up, and you can surf to link to the contact list you wish to have.

Good luck!

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Shane,

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I realize there is other ways to get Outlook information into Access, but was mostly wondering about the error. I swear this worked at one point, but now I can’t figure out what changed.

If any other’s have experienced this error, let me know!

Thanks again.
Sarah

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Hi Sarah,
I just did what you were attempting to do using Office XP and it worked, but unfortunately I don’t have Office 2000 available at the moment, so I can’t test that combination. I would be suspicious that the ODBC driver for either Outlook or Access was not installed, or had been corrupted in some way. But that’s pretty much a guess. I wasn’t able to find anything useful on the MS site either so no help there – ODBC errors are generally a pain to troubleshoot.

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Well I swore I tried this before, but my problem is fixed at the moment. I did a Detect and Repair on Outlook, then closed Outlook and reopened it. Then the export to a Microsoft Access file went fine with no errors. If it reappears, I’ll add to this post.

Thanks for the suggestions!
Sarah

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