How Can I Turn an Excel Spreadsheet Into a Contact List in Outlook 03?

Import an Excel spreadsheet as a contact list in Microsoft Outlook 2003.

Microsoft Outlook 2003 is a widely used personal communication tool. Included as part of the Microsoft Office suite of software, Outlook offers a point-and-click interface to simplify the sending, receiving, sorting and searching of email messages. The program also offers contact list functionality, which supports the import of data using spreadsheet-based formats. Once you understand the proper steps, turning an Excel spreadsheet into a set of contacts in Outlook 2003 becomes a quick task.

Instructions

1. Open your Excel spreadsheet.

2. Right-click on the top row of the spreadsheet and select "Insert." Add headings (e.g., "Name," "Email address") within this row that reflect the content contained in each column.

3. Click "File" in the top menu bar and select "Save As." In Excel 2007, click the round "Office" button at the top-left corner of the window and select "Save As" instead.

4. Give the file a name, select the desktop as the save location, choose "CSV (Comma delimited)" from the "Save as type" drop-down menu, and then click "Save."

5. Close Microsoft Excel.

6. Open Microsoft Outlook 2003.

7. Look to the Folder List on the left-hand side of the Outlook window and locate the "Contacts" folder.

8. Right-click the "Contacts" folder and select "New Folder." Give the folder a name and click "OK."

9. Click "File" in the top menu bar and select "Import and Export."

10. Leave the default "Import from another program or file" option selected and click "Next."

11. Select "Comma Separated Values (Windows)" and click "Next."

12. Click "Browse," locate the spreadsheet you saved to CSV format in Step 4, and select it by double-clicking its icon.

13. Select "Do not import duplicate items" and click "Next."

14. Single-click the name of the Contacts folder you created in Step 8 and click "Next."

15. Click "Map Custom Fields."

16. Click a value name in the left-hand column (e.g., "Email address") and drag the name over the corresponding field name on the right-hand column to match the fields in your spreadsheet with the fields supported by Outlook. Repeat the process for all values in the left-hand column.

17. Click "OK."

18. Click "Finish." The contents of your original Excel spreadsheet are imported to Outlook 2003 as new contact list entries.

References

• Microsoft Support: How to import contacts into Outlook from Excel
• Hollins University: Creating a distribution list from an Excel spreadsheet