Add All Contacts In Distribution List As Contacts

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Guest

Is it possible to add the contacts in a distribution list to a profile's
Contacts list efficiently (not one by one) without adding the distribution
list as just one contact that can be expanded?

I have a user who wishes to have an offline Contacts list for everyone in
the distribution list on their BlackBerry. Unfortunately, you can't expand
the distribution list in the BlackBerry so not all the information is there.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
It takes a couple of steps, but it's not hard: Save the DL as a .txt file. Open it in Notepad to remove the first few lines that don't contain names and addresses. Use the Outlook Import/Export wizard to import the .txt file (actually a tab-delimited file) into the Contacts folder.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Thanks for the reply.

How can I save the distribution list as a text file? I'm not too familiar
with Outlook.

On a side note, for some reason, my Import and Export wizard for Outlook
seems to crash it. Any option that I select and then attempt to click on
Next will cause Outlook to terminate after 2 or 3 seconds.

I can get the error report if that helps; the problem is easy enough to
duplicate. I definitely can't decipher it. Reading hexidecimal isn't
exactly a natural ability.
 
How can I save the distribution list as a text file?

File | Save As.

Try running Help | Detect and Repair to deal with the crashes.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Sue Mosher said:
File | Save As.
Click to expand...

Yeah, sorry, dumb question. I probably should have explained this more.

The disitribution list is created as part of our company global address
list. When I save it as a text file, all I get is the name of the
distribution list and the accompanying comment. I think that this is
happening because it *looks* like I have a distribution list inside a new
distribution list.

Is there a way to extract the data from existing distribution lists? I'm
sure that I'm doing this incorrectly.
 
Yes, that it's a GAL distribution list makes all the difference in the world. So much so that we need to start over, but unfortunately, I don't remember the original question. Maybe you'll find a tool that will do what you want at http://www.slipstick.com/contacts/dl.htm#tools.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Unfortunately the add-ins on that list seem to do the opposite of what I'm
asking for. Or at least, it won't be an easy process as this user will have
to broadcast a message to the distribution list and wait for people to reply
which will automatically put them in their Contacts.

Here's the question again:

Is it possible to add the contacts in a distribution list to a profile's
Contacts list efficiently (not one by one) without adding the distribution
list as just one contact that can be expanded?

Thanks for your time.
 
You'd have to use one of the tools listed (and there may be more at http://www.slipstick.com/contacts/print.htm#gal) to generate a list in a file format, e.g. csv, that Outlook can import. There's nothing built into Outlook to do what you want.

Outlook also doesn't automatically add contacts.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
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