Setting Up a Personal Address Book

One word: Don't. Microsoft wants to steer people away from using the Personal Address Book (PAB). If you don't have an old one you used with a previous version of Outlook, skip this section you should not start using one now. If you have a PAB you created years ago and are still using it, you should seriously consider importing it into your Contacts folder.

If you're upgrading from a pervious version of Outlook and have a PAB in your profile, the first time you use Outlook after upgrading, you'll be asked whether you want Outlook to import the entries in the Personal Address Book and remove the Personal Address Book from your profile, as shown in Figure 11.6. Choose Yes to import the entries into your Contacts folder. If you choose No, you can import the entries at a later time; see the "Converting Your Personal Address Book to Contacts" section later in this section.

Figure 11.6. When you have a personal address book in your profile, Outlook detects it and offers to import the addresses into your Contacts folder.

The Personal Address Book offers many limitations and few benefits to most people.

• The PAB is another file you need to remember to back up (or lose), unlike contacts, which are stored in your mailbox and are backed up with your email.

• You can't use PAB entries as substitutes for contacts with many of Outlook's features that use the Contacts folder. You can't drag a message to the PAB to create a new address book entry or associate the entries in the PAB with your journal entries.

• The PAB doesn't support vCards.

• When you use both the Contacts folder and PAB, it's easy to end up with duplicated records and forget which address book has the records you need or is up-to-date.

Because the PAB's entry form has fewer fields, as shown in Figure 11.7, many people use it for storing records for people they contact only by email and reserve the Contacts folder for people they need to maintain more information for, including email addresses, phone numbers, and postal addresses. However, if you've never used a PAB before, this is not enough reason to start using one now. You can easily use categories or additional Contacts folders to group email-only contact entries.

Figure 11.7. The record form for the Personal Address Book has a simpler interface with fewer fields.

At one time, you had to use the PAB if you wanted to create distribution lists. However, the Contacts folder now supports distribution lists and there's no need to keep the PAB around. Microsoft is encouraging Outlook users to use the Contacts folder instead of the PAB and might stop supporting the PAB in future Outlook versions.

NOTE

Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 in Internet Only Mode didn't support the use of a PAB.

If I haven't talked you out of using the Personal Address Book by now, you can add an existing PAB to your profile by following these steps:

1. Select Tools, E-mail Accounts.

2. Under Directory, Select Add a New Directory or Address Book and choose Next.

3. Select Additional Address Books; click Next.

4. Select Personal Address Book from the list; click Next.

5. The Personal Address Book dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 11.8. Browse to your PAB and select it, and then click OK.

   Figure 11.8. Use the Personal Address Book dialog box to change the file-by order of the entries in your PAB.

   

The PAB is now part of your profile, but you'll need to close Outlook and reopen it before you can use your PAB.

Converting Your Personal Address Book to Contacts

If you want to try working with only Contacts folders as address books, you can import the contents of your PAB into a new Contacts folder or add a category to an existing Contacts folder to identify the imported contacts.

TIP

If you don't like using the Contacts folder and want to go back to using the PAB, delete the new Contacts folder you imported the addresses to. Or, if you imported the PAB into a category in your main Contacts folder, group by category and delete the contacts you imported.

To import your PAB to your Contacts folder:

1. Select File, Import and Export to start the Import and Export Wizard.

2. Choose Import from Another Program or File and then click Next.

3. Choose Personal Address Book from the list of file types and click Next.

4. Select the Destination folder and click Next.

5. You shouldn't need to make any changes on the next screen; the import filter will correctly map the fields for you. Select Next and the records are imported.

6. If you imported the PAB into your only Contacts folder, go to the Contacts folder and select the By Category view. The imported contacts should be grouped in the (none) category. If you don't use categories, most or all of your contacts will be in the (none) category.

7. Right-click on the row of field names and choose Field Chooser. Look for Modified in the list of frequently used fields and drag it to the row of field names. All the imported contacts will have the same modified time.

8. Open one imported contact, and add a category to it to identify it as coming from your PAB. Select the remaining imported contacts and drag them to the category group with the other contact. All of your imported contacts are now assigned your PAB category.

9. Open your email profile and remove the PAB from your profile. If it's not in your address book list, you won't be tempted to use it.