<<What do you mean by "files?"
Why aren't you just using Categories like the rest of us?>>

Thanks for the input. I am, for the record, using categories. Technically, I
could use categories to do what I am trying to do, but I would end up with
several hundred categories, making the categories function unwieldy.

By files I mean that under "Contacts" in the "Folder List" view I have a
long list of contact sub-folders. For each subfolder I may have additional
subfolders.  Within each folder or subfolder are individual contacts. For my
work, I do a lot of research and I have contacts who represent sources of
information for different areas of my researh.

So if I start a new research project, I make a new folder for contacts
associated with that project. Some of the contacts for this new project will
be new contacts. And some of the contacts for this new project will already
be in the file of an old project. And I want to move the old contact to the
file for the new project, but I also want to keep the contact in the file of
the old project.

When I do the new project using a contact from an old project, I will
probably add to or modify the information of the old contact (with, for
example, information about the new project). So instead of moving the old
contact from the old project file to the new project file, I would like to be
able to add a shortcut to the old contact in the new contact file, instead of
moving the contact.

If I copy the old contact to the new project file. I now have two versions
of the contact: one in the old project file and one in the new project file.
As I update the information on the contact in the new project file, the
information on the contact in the old project file will stay the same. I want
the two files to, in a sense, be syncronized.

As an analogy: If I have a Word document stored in a file, I will often have
shortcuts to that Word file stored in other, related files. As opposed to
having the Word file copied to other files. If the Word document is copied to
other files, anytime I modify it, it will only be updated in the one file and
not the others. Which is why I am trying to figure out how to create a
shortcut to a contact so I can access the same, single contact from different
files within Outlook.

<<If you want simple access to a particular contact or certain contacts,
export each one to a .vcf file, and save them to a fold that you have easy
access to. When you need one, find it and double click on it ... and voila,
the contact form appears>>

I tried this, but the same problem occurs. A separate and new vcf file is
created independent from the original contact file. Any modifications to
either file is only saved in that file.

<<There are no such shortcuts in Outlook.  Every item in a folder is a
separate item.  Modifying one affects no other.>>

This is what I had concluded, but I wanted to get a second opinion. I was
hoping I was missing something.