Problem Customising Contact View

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Brett - 29 Jan 2004 01:22 GMT

Hi

I have tried to customise my 'view' when looking at the Contacts in Outlook
XP.

The criteria is simple - any Contact checked as 'Personal' in the categories
section will be displayed in a red font.

In Outlook 2000 this feature works fine, however the PC at work is on XP Pro
and will not provide the same view, that is, all 'Personal' Contacts are
still displayed in a black font.

Any ideas on the matter appreciated.

Brett

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Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook] - 29 Jan 2004 05:22 GMT

Are you doing this through the Organize feature, or are you editing the
Automatic Formatting rules directly? Please list the exact steps you took
to try to get this working.

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Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

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> Hi
>
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>
> Brett

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Brett - 30 Jan 2004 04:05 GMT

I am 'customising' the view as follows:

From the menu selecting 'View', 'Current View', 'Customise Current View'.

From there I select 'Automatic Formatting' and created a new Rule (which I
called Personal Contacts). It is within this rule that I have stipulated
that when a contact has 'Personal' marked in its categories, the font colour
for that contact is red.

I have a Dell PDA and this list of contacts is replicated between the office
and my home PC. My home PC runs Outlook 2000 (XP in the office), yet
Outlook 2000 will provide for this ruling.

Any help appreciated.

Brett

> Are you doing this through the Organize feature, or are you editing the
> Automatic Formatting rules directly? Please list the exact steps you took
> to try to get this working.

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Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook] - 01 Feb 2004 03:31 GMT

Are you using the Categories field on the More Choices tab for the rule
criteria, or did you use the Advanced tab? The Advanced tab may work
better...you could set the criteria as "Categories contains Personal" if you
want to specify any contact that has Personal as a category even if it also
belongs to other categories, or "Categories equals Personal" if you want to
specify only contacts that belong to the Personal category exclusively.

Signature

Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

> I am 'customising' the view as follows:
>
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>> *** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
>> reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

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Brett - 02 Feb 2004 00:36 GMT

Thanks for that.

I was using the 'More Choices' tab and have now removed that criteria and
placed it into the 'Advanced' tab. I have tried the condition as both
'contains' and 'equals' with still no result.

Is anyone else having this same sort of problem? It's not a big deal but a
feature that makes searching for business vs personal contacts a little
easier.

Brett

> Are you using the Categories field on the More Choices tab for the rule
> criteria, or did you use the Advanced tab? The Advanced tab may work
> better...you could set the criteria as "Categories contains Personal" if you
> want to specify any contact that has Personal as a category even if it also
> belongs to other categories, or "Categories equals Personal" if you want to
> specify only contacts that belong to the Personal category exclusively.

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Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook] - 03 Feb 2004 02:12 GMT

Hmm. I don't have Outlook 2002 on this machine, but which view are you
trying to customize? I'm trying to repro your issue (and I can try another
machine with Outlook 2002 on it tomorrow)...

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Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

> Thanks for that.
>
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>> *** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
>> reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

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Brett - 03 Feb 2004 06:59 GMT

Detailed Address Cards is the view I'm trying to customise.

I have Outlook 2000 at home and it is ok with this criteria. Let me know
how you go.

Thanks
Brett

> Hmm. I don't have Outlook 2002 on this machine, but which view are you
> trying to customize? I'm trying to repro your issue (and I can try another
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> >> *** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
> >> reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

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Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook] - 04 Feb 2004 04:52 GMT

In Outlook 2003, the text in the fields turns red when I assign red to any
contact with "Personal" as one of its categories -- the "title" of the
contact does not turn red, nor do the field labels; just the text IN the
fields. But it still lets me see which ones are in the Personal category.
Sorry I haven't had a chance to test Outlook 2002 yet -- I set a reminder to
myself to test it sometime tomorrow. Will get back to you when I do.

Signature

Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

> Detailed Address Cards is the view I'm trying to customise.
>
[quoted text clipped - 42 lines]
>>>> please reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread.
>>>> ***

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Jocelyn Fiorello [MVP - Outlook] - 05 Feb 2004 02:23 GMT

An update -- unfortunately, I realized we had updated all of our computers
here to Office 2003, so I was not able to test on Outlook 2002 personally.
However, a fellow Outlook MVP tested it on Outlook 2002 for me and he got
the same result that you did. It would appear that this is a bug (or a
"feature" <g>), but if I find out differently I'll post back to this thread.
In the meantime you may want to experiment with the automatic formatting on
different views, including custom views, and see if you can find an
alternative that meets your needs.

Signature

Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Messages sent to my e-mail address will NOT be answered -- please
reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***

> In Outlook 2003, the text in the fields turns red when I assign red
> to any contact with "Personal" as one of its categories -- the
[quoted text clipped - 51 lines]
>>>>> please reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread.
>>>>> ***

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