How to use the Outlook Express Address Book in a mail merge in Word

This step-by-step article describes how to export the Microsoft Outlook Express Address Book 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 2000 or with Microsoft Word 2002. Therefore, when you try to perform a mail merge with the Outlook Express Address Book, either it will not be an available address book, or you may receive one of the following error messages:

How to Use the Outlook Express Address Book in a Mail Merge

To export the Address Book 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 a file name for your exported Address Book file, and then click Browse.
5. Save your file.
   
   By default, Outlook Express saves the file to your desktop. You may want to save the file to the My Documents folder or to a different folder or drive. Select the folder that you want to use.
   
   You can save your Outlook Express Address Book in one of two formats: Comma Separated Values (*.csv) or Text Files (*.txt). Word can use either format.
6. In the Save as Type box, click the format that you want to use, and then click Save.
7. Click Next.
8. Select the fields that you want to export as part of your data source, and then click Finish.
   
   NOTE: All the fields in the Outlook Express Address Book can be exported, except for Gender, Conferencing E-mail, and Directory Servers.
9. When you are prompted with a message that the address book export process is completed, click OK.
10. Click Close to close the Address Book Export Tool dialog box.

For more information about how to use mail merge to create a form letter, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about how to use mail merge to create mailing labels, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about how to use mail merge to create form letters in Word 2002 , click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: