WD97: No Outlook Address Book File to Open on Hard Disk Drive (173934)

SYMPTOMS

In the Open dialog box (on the File menu, click Open) in Microsoft Word 97, you can select "Outlook Address Book (*.olk)" in the Files Of Type list. However, Microsoft Outlook does not create files with that file name extension, so there are no files to open.

WORKAROUND

To access an Outlook address book in Word, use either of the following methods.

Export the Address Book from Outlook

To export the addresses from Outlook, follow these steps:

On the File menu, click Import And Export.
In the Import and Export Wizard dialog box, click to select Export To A File and then click Next.
Click to select the folder you want to export from (for example, select the Contacts folder), and then click Next.
In the "Create a file of type" list, click to select either "Comma Separated Values (Windows)" or "Tab Separated Values (Windows)," and then click Next.
Type a name for the new file in the Save Exported File As box, and click Next.
Click Map Custom Fields. Select the default map, and then click OK.
Click Finish.

After Outlook creates the .csv or .tsv file, you can open the file in Word.

Use the Outlook Address Book as a Data Source for a Mail Merge

For additional information about how to Use the Outlook address book as a data sourcein Microsoft Word 97, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

168236 WD97: Outlook Address Book Not Available in Mail Merge Helper