OL 2003 sort address book by File As

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kmorganr - 20 Jul 2004 19:53 GMT

Hi,
Is there any way to make the address book display match
the display settings of Contacts more closely? I have
selected File As for the sort order for the address book,
but this field is not displayed, so I can't locate
anything by it.

After spending a lot of time creating categories and sort
orders in Contacts, it seems ridiculous that the only sort
options for the address book are File As (which doesn't
show) and First or Last Name. I have thousands of contacts
in several different contacts folders and when I view them
in the address book to add on a To or CC line, all I get
is by First or Last name? I'd like to at least see them
grouped by Company name and I'm willing to go to the
trouble to format the File As field to contain this info.
But it seems OL forces me to change the Last Name field to
contain the sort order info, and that messes up the
display in Contacts as well as other Office functions that
make use of this field.

This seems so illogical that I can't believe MS or some
clever developer/user hasn't figured a way around this.
Thanks.

Reply to this Message

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 20 Jul 2004 21:52 GMT

I don't understand your question. One of the options you already have is to
sort the Outlook Address Book your File As field.

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

> Hi,
> Is there any way to make the address book display match
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
> clever developer/user hasn't figured a way around this.
> Thanks.

Reply to this Message

kmorganr - 20 Jul 2004 22:45 GMT

Sorry I wasn't clear. The problem is that even though I'm
sorting by it, the File As field is not shown in the
Address Book that opens when you click on the To or CC
buttons in a new message. The column heading is Name.

I currently have different contacts files
named "Customers" and "Suppliers". These each show in my
address book but just as a long list by name. I want to
sort the Address Book by File As, so that I would see my
contacts listed by company. To do this I would change the
File As in each contact (in Contacts) to start with an
abbreviation of the company name, followed by the
contact's name. But since File As is not shown in Address
Book, all I see is the contact's name and not what company
they are with. Am I missing something in OL that would
show the File As field? or can you think of a workaround?

Thanks.

>-----Original Message-----
>I don't understand your question. One of the options you already have is to
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>
>.

Reply to this Message

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 20 Jul 2004 23:14 GMT

When you set the Outlook Address Book to sort by the File As field, it is
the File As field that appears in the Name field.

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

> Sorry I wasn't clear. The problem is that even though I'm
> sorting by it, the File As field is not shown in the
[quoted text clipped - 54 lines]
> >
> >.

Reply to this Message

kmorganr - 21 Jul 2004 14:32 GMT

oh...do I feel stupid! Thanks! I didn't realize since the
heading stays "name".

>-----Original Message-----
>When you set the Outlook Address Book to sort by the File As field, it is
[quoted text clipped - 59 lines]
>
>.

Reply to this Message

Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook] - 21 Jul 2004 14:54 GMT

They do that on purpose to keep you guessing.

Signature

Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

> oh...do I feel stupid! Thanks! I didn't realize since the
> heading stays "name".
[quoted text clipped - 79 lines]
> >
> >.

Reply to this Message