Office Address Book export contains extra Tab character in data records in Word for Mac

After you export the Office Address Book from Microsoft Entourage, and then the file is opened in Microsoft Word for Mac, the data records contain one more tab character than the header record.

Because the tab characters are used to separate data fields in the data records (as field delimiters), it may appear that the data records contain an extra field that is not accounted for in the header record. This can cause problems when you try to use this data in another program.

For example, if you try to use this data as a data source for a Word data merge, the following error message may appear:

To work around this problem, export the Address Book to a file, and then modify the file using Microsoft Excel 2001 for Mac or Word for Mac before using the file in another program.

To do this, use either of the following methods.

Method 1: Export the Address Book and Use Excel 2001 for Mac to Modify Your File

1. Start Entourage (or Outlook Express). On the File menu, click Export Contacts. Name the file, and then click Save.
2. Quit Entourage, and then start Excel 2001 for Mac.
3. On the File menu in Excel, click Open.
4. Locate your contacts export, and then click Open. Click Finish.
5. On the File menu, click Save As. In the Name box, type a new name for your contacts export.
6. Click Save, and then click Yes when the following message appears:
   "FILE NAME" may contain features that are not compatible with Text (Tab delimited). Do you want to keep the workbook in this format?
   
   * To keep this format, which leaves out any incompatible features, click Yes.
   * To preserve the features, click No. Then save a copy in the latest Excel Format.

Method 2: Export the Address Book and Use Word 2001 for Mac to Modify Your File

1. Start Entourage (or Outlook Express). On the File menu, click Export Contacts. Name the file, and then click Save.
2. Quit Entourage, and then start Word for Mac.
3. On the File menu, click Open.
4. Locate your contacts export, and then click Open.
5. On the Standard toolbar, click Show/Hide to display hidden text in the document, such as tab characters and paragraph marks.
6. Find the word "Interests," and then place the insertion point immediately after the word "Interests" but before the paragraph mark.
7. Press TAB to insert a tab character between the word "Interests" and the paragraph mark. The line should appear as follows:
   Astrology Sign (Tab Character) Interests (Tab Character)(Paragraph Mark)
8. On the File menu, click Save, and then close the contacts export.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.