Creating an Additional Address Book

Although you can certainly track all your contacts-business or personal-within the Contacts module, and locate specific contacts or groups of contacts by categorizing, sorting, and filtering, you might find it useful to create a separate address book containing contact records for only a specific group of people. For example, you might want to have an address book containing only club members, neighborhood contacts, parents and teachers from your child's school, or sports teammates. You create this additional address book by creating a folder designated as containing contact items

(a contacts folder). As with other folders, you can share the contacts folder with other Outlook users on your network, or export it for distribution to other people.

Sharing Address Books

To share one or more address books with other people on your network:

1. In the Contacts module Navigation Pane, in the My Contacts list, right-click the address book you want to share, and then click Share (for example, Share "SBS Contacts"). Or if you want to share all your address books, click the Share My Contacts folder link at the bottom of the pane.

   Outlook creates a Sharing Invitation message containing information about the selected address book.

2. In the To box, enter the names of people or distribution lists on your network with whom you want to share the address book.

   Your sharing options vary depending on the address book you are sharing. If you are sharing your primary address book, you can request reciprocal permission by selecting the Request Permission To View Recipient's Contacts Folder check box. If you are sharing a secondary address book, you can give the recipient full access by selecting the Recipient Can Add, Edit, And Delete Items In This Contacts Folder check box.

3. In the message header, click Send.

4. In the Microsoft Office Outlook message box asking you to confirm that you want to share the selected contacts folder(s), click Yes.

In this exercise, you will create a contacts folder. There are no practice files for this exercise.

BE SURE TO display the Contacts module before beginning this exercise.

1. Click the New Contact arrow, and then in the list, click Folder.

   The Create New Folder dialog box opens.

2. In the Name box, type SBS Contacts.

   Important 

   The name of this folder begins with SBS so that you can easily differentiate it from other folders in your mailbox.

3. Click the Folder contains arrow, and note the types of folders you can create.

   Because you are creating this folder from within the Contacts module, Contact Items is selected by default. However, you can create any type of folder from within any module.

4. In the Folder contains list, click Contact Items.

5. In the Select where to place the folder list, click Mailbox (or your account name, depending on your installation) to place the folder at the same level as your Inbox.

   

6. In the Create New Folder dialog box, click OK.

   The SBS Contacts address book appears in the My Contacts list at the top of the Contacts module Navigation Pane.

   

7. In the Navigation Pane, click the Mail button to display your Inbox.

   The SBS Contacts folder is not visible in the Mail Folders area of the Navigation Pane, which currently displays the All Mail Items list.

8. At the bottom of the Navigation Pane, click the Folder List button.

   The Folder List Navigation Pane, displaying all Outlook items rather than only mail items, replaces the Mail Navigation Pane. The SBS Contacts folder appears above your Sent Items folder.

   

   A contact card icon next to the folder name indicates that the folder is designed to hold contact items.

9. In the All Outlook Items list, click the SBS Contacts folder.

   Outlook displays the currently empty SBS Contacts address book. The same functionality available to you within your main address book is available within this custom address book.

   

10. In the Navigation Pane, click the Contacts button.

    The Contact module opens, still displaying the SBS Contacts address book.

11. In the My Contacts list, click Contacts to display your main address book.

Exporting Address Books

To export an address book for distribution to Outlook users outside of your network:

1. In the Outlook program window, on the File menu, click Import and Export.

   The Import And Export wizard starts.

2. In the Choose an action to perform list, click Export to a file, and click Next.

3. In the Create a file of type list, click Personal Folder File (.pst), and click Next.

4. In the Select the folder to export from list, click the contacts folder you want to export, and then click Next.

5. Click the Browse button to the right of the Save exported file as box. Then in the Open Personal Folders dialog box, select the location where you want to save the file, type the file name, and click OK.

6. On the wizard's last page, click Finish.

7. In the Create Microsoft Personal Folders dialog box, you can rename the file or enter a password to restrict access to the file's contents. Make any changes you want, and then click OK.

   Outlook exports the selected address book to a file that you can send to other Outlook users, who can import and display it.

The process of exporting an address book for use outside of Outlook is identical to that described above, except that in step 3, you select the type of file you want to create. You can create a comma-separated file, tab-separated file, Microsoft Office Access database, or Microsoft Office Excel workbook.