Outlook Express Help

Contacts

Using Contacts

Introducing Contacts

Opening Contacts

Adding a contact

Adding the sender of a message to Contacts

Adding a selected address to Contacts

Changing contact information

Deleting a contact

Searching for a contact

Sorting Contacts

Importing information

Exporting Contacts to other programs

Creating a mailing list

Adding a contact to an existing mailing list

Deleting a contact in a mailing list

Deleting a mailing list

Using directory services

Finding a person, business, or e-mail address

Checking recipient names and e-mail addresses

Adding an entry from a directory service to your Contacts

Introducing Contacts

Contacts provides a convenient place for you to store information about the people to whom you send and receive e-mail. It also features access to Internet directory services, which you can use to look up people and businesses on the Internet. You'll find that the following features help you organize all your contact information into the most usable form for you.

Store phone numbers and e-mail messages, home, business, and home page addresses
With Contacts, you have a place to store multiple e-mail addresses, home and work addresses, and phone and fax numbers. You can also store individual and business Internet addresses. For extra information that doesn't fit in to these categories, there's a generous section for notes.

Find people and businesses by using LDAP directory services
Directory services are powerful search tools that enable you to look up names and addresses on the Internet. Contacts supports Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) for using Internet directory services. When you find a person or company, you can add them to Contacts or send them e-mail messages directly.

Check recipient names and addresses before you send a message
Microsoft Outlook Express provides visual feedback to let you know when there might be a problem with the address of one of your recipients. You can use the Check Names feature to verify addresses by using your default directory service.

Create groups of contacts for mailing lists
You can create groups of contacts, called mailing lists, to make it easy to send e-mail messages to a set of people, such as business associates, relatives, or sports pals. Any time you want to send an e-mail message to everyone in the mailing list, just use the mailing list name instead of typing each contact individually. Creating mailing lists is also a good idea if you have a large collection of names in the Contacts.

Mail Merge with Office 98
The Mail Merge feature in Microsoft Word 98 allows you to address letters and envelopes by using your Outlook Express contacts.

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To open Contacts

On the Window menu, choose Contacts.

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To add a contact

On the File menu, point to New, and then choose Contact.
- In the First Name box, type the first name of the person. If you are adding a user with only one name, such as a company, type the name in the First Name box and leave the Last Name box empty.
- In the Last Name box, type the last name of the person.
- In the Title box, type the title or position of the person.
- In the Company box, type the name of the company the person represents.
- In the Dept box, type the person's department.
- Choose an address type from the menu, and type the street or mailing address in the Address box. To assign multiple addresses for a contact, just choose another address type from the menu and type information in the Address box.
- Choose the appropriate type of phone number from the menus and type the person's phone numbers in the adjacent box.
- In the notes box, type any additional information.
Add e-mail addresses.
- In the E-mail Address box, click Add, and then type an e-mail address.
- To add additional addresses, just click Add again.
- If you add more than one e-mail address, the first address you type, by default, will be the one used when you send e-mail to that contact. To change the default e-mail address, click the address you want to be the default, and then click Default. A check mark will appear beside that address, indicating that it is now the default e-mail address.
Click Save.

Tip

Use the Tab key to move through each field in the Contacts window.

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To add the sender of a message to Contacts

Click the message whose sender you want to add to your Contacts.
On the Tools menu, choose Add To Contacts.

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To add a selected address to Contacts

Open a mail folder and click a message, or open a text file with a text editor such as SimpleText.
In the body of the message or text file, highlight the e-mail address.
Drag the e-mail address to the Contacts window, or the Contacts icon in the Folder list.

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To change contact information

If the Contacts window is not open, choose Contacts from the Window menu.
Double-click the contact you want to edit.
Make changes as needed.
Click Save.

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To delete a contact

If the Contacts window is not open, choose Contacts from the Window menu.
Click the contact you want to delete.
On the Edit menu, choose Delete Contact. This deletes the contact from your Contacts and from any mailing lists to which it belongs.
If you receive an alert, click Yes to permanently remove the contact.

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To search for a contact

If the Contacts window is not open, choose Contacts from the Window menu. If you want to search a mailing list, click the list you want to open.
In the Display Names Containing box at the top of the window, type the name of the contact. As you type, only the names that match what you have typed will be displayed.
To show the entire list of contacts again, delete the text in the Display Names Containing box.

Tips

You can also use the Find People command in the Edit menu to search in Contacts.
If you can't remember someone's complete e-mail address, you can type a partial name, and then use the Check Names button on the toolbar to search for matches. Outlook Express first searches your Contacts and if no matches are found, it searches the directory services that you have set up to check e-mail address.

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To sort Contacts

If the Contacts window is not open, choose Contacts from the Window menu. If you want to sort a mailing list, click mailing list to open it.
Click the column heading you want to sort by.
To switch the sort order between ascending and descending, click the triangle in the column heading again.

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To import information from other programs

On the File menu, click Import, and then point to Messages, Contacts, or E-mail Message.
Click the e-mail program from which you want to import information.
When complete, the address book entries and mailing lists are added to Contacts, and the messages are stored in a folder in the Folder list.

Tip

If you are importing from Netscape Navigator and want to speed up the import process, select each of your mail folders in Navigator, and then choose Compress Folder from the File menu.

To import information from previous versions of Outlook Express

The OE User(s) folder contains information such as preferences, rules, messages, and contacts for each user that you have set up. If you did not upgrade your OE accounts when you installed the latest version, you can use your old OE User(s) folder to import that information. However, be aware that any information that you created in the new version, such as contacts, preferences, and accounts, will be replaced with the information stored in the older OE User(s) folder.

Locate the folder containing the previous version of Outlook Express and open the OE User(s) folder within it.
Copy the OE User(s) folder into the latest Outlook Express folder.

Related Topic
Exporting Contacts to another program

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To export Contacts to another program

On the File menu, choose Export Contacts.
Specify where you want to store the exported file.
Type a new name for the export file, if needed.
Click Save.

Tip

The exported Contacts file is a text file that can be modified.

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To create a mailing list

On the File menu, point to New, and then choose Mailing List.
A new, untitled mailing list is created in the Folder list under Contacts.
To name the mailing list, click and hold the mouse button in the name field of the untitled mailing list, and then type a name.
Click the mailing list in the Folder list to view its contents.

Tip

If you don't want others to see the names of your mailing list members, select the Hide Recipient Names check box.

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To add a contact to an existing mailing list

Everyone in a mailing list must be defined in your Contacts in order for them to receive mail. There are three ways to add contacts to a mailing list.

Drag and Drop:

Open Contacts. Make sure you can see the mailing list icon in the Folder list.
Click the contacts you want to add to the mailing list and drag them onto the mailing list icon in the Folder list.

Create a new contact in the mailing list:

Open Contacts.
Open the mailing list.
On the File menu, point to New, and then choose Contact, or click the New button on the toolbar. The new contact will be added to the mailing list and to your Contacts.

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To delete a contact in a mailing list

Open the mailing list, and then click the contact you want to delete.
On the Edit menu, choose Delete Contact. This removes the contact from the selected mailing list, but not from Contacts.

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To delete a mailing list

Click the mailing list in the Folder list or in the Contacts window.
On the Edit menu, choose Delete Mailing List.

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To find a person, business, or e-mail address

From the Edit menu, choose Find People.
From the Folder list, choose the directory service you want to use.
Do one or both of the following:
- Type a name in the Name box.
- Type an e-mail address in the E-mail box.
Click Find Now.
To limit the number of items displayed in the list, type a search criteria in the Display Names Containing box so that only items that meet your criteria will be displayed. For example, if you searched for the name J Smith, type John in the Search box, and only those names that include John will be displayed.
Double-click an entry to view more information.

Tips

You can also use the Find People dialog box to search your Contacts.
To send a mail message to a person you have found in a directory service, click the Mail To button on the toolbar.
You can use settings in the Preferences to refine the search criteria for a directory service.

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To check recipient names and e-mail addresses

Type the recipients in the To, Cc, or Bcc fields.
- A recipient's e-mail address or name is underlined in black when the recipient is "resolved". This occurs when the recipient is listed in Contacts with only one e-mail address, or the e-mail address format is correct.
- A recipient's name is underlined in green when the recipient is listed in Contacts with multiple addresses. If you don't want to send the message to the default e-mail address, press the Control key, hold down the mouse button, and then select a different address.
- A recipient's name is underlined in red when there is more than one person in Contacts with this name. Proceed to step 2.
- A recipient's name is not underlined when the recipient is not in Contacts. Proceed to step 2.
Click the Check Names button on the toolbar. Microsoft Outlook Express will search Contacts and your default directory service for the names listed.
In the Check Names dialog box, scroll through the matching names list and do one of the following:
- Click Remove if you cannot find the correct recipient and do not want to send the message to the selected recipient.
- Click the person to whom you want to send the message, and then click OK.

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To add an entry from a directory service to Contacts

Click the name of the person you want to add to Contacts.
On the Tools menu, choose Add To Contacts.

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