WD97: How to Use the Outlook Express Address Book in Mail Merge

This article describes how to export the Outlook Express Address Book as a text file to use as a mail merge data source in Microsoft Word.

NOTE: The Outlook Express Address Book is not designed for use with Microsoft Word 97 for Windows. Therefore, when you try to perform a mail merge with the Outlook Express Address Book, it will not be an available address book or you will receive an error message.

For more information about the error messages you may receive, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

NOTE: For more information on how to import your Outlook Express Address Book into the Microsoft Outlook 97/98 Contact List, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: To export the Address Book as a text file from Outlook Express, follow these steps:

1. Start Outlook Express.
2. On the File menu, point to Export, and then click Address Book.
3. In the Address Book Export Tool dialog box, click Text File (Comma Separated Values) and then click Export.
4. In the "Save exported file as" box, type in a file name for your exported Address Book file, and then click Browse.
5. Save your file.
   
   By default, Outlook Express will save the file to your desktop. You may want to save the file to the My Documents folder or to a different folder or drive.
   
   NOTE: You can save your Outlook Express Address Book in one of two formats: Comma Separated Values (*.csv) or Text Files (*.txt). Word will be able to use either format.
6. Click Next.
7. Click to select the fields that you want to export as part of your data source, and then click Finish.
   
   NOTE: All of the fields in the Outlook Express Address Book can be exported, except for Gender, Conferencing Email, and Directory Servers.
8. When Outlook Express has completed exporting your address book, the following message will be displayed:
   Address book export has completed successfully.
   Click OK.
9. Click Close to close the Address Book Export Tool dialog box.

Note: If you receive a "Word cannot open the data source" error message do the following:

1. From the Open Data Source dialog place a check next to "Select Method".
2. Choose Text Files (*.txt) instead of the ODBC converter.

For more information about performing a mail merge in Word using a text file, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: