How to import email addresses from Outlook Express?

Created on 2001-09-06 by Andre Lorbach.

Do you have many contacts in your Outlook Express and do you want to import them into NewsMerge?
Then follow this instruction to do so. You will need at least Outlook Express (Seems to be sure ;-)) and MS Access 2000.

1. Open your Address Book view in Outlook express. You will see all your contacts. Here is a sample screenshot:

2. In the menu click on File->Export->Other Address Book and select "Text File (Comma Separated Values)". Then proceed with clicking on the Export button and select the file destination. The next dialog will show you the fields which you can export. First select the following fields: First Name, Last Name, Middle Name, E-mail Address and Company. If you have done so deselect all other fields, they can't be used for NewsMerge. See the sample screenshot below.

3. Now you can click on Finish. A CSV-File will be generated. 
Because the field names of NewsMerge are different to the field names Outlook Express, you have to modify them in the CSV file first. I prefer using Notepad.exe for this. See the two Screenshots below that shows you how to change the field names.

That is what we get after the export

Fieldnames are now corrected for use with NewsMerge  

4. Now we have to switch to MS Access to open the NewsMerge database which is located  in the NewsMerge installation directory (Look for a file called NewsMergeDB.mdb). In the menu click on File->Get External Data->Import. Now select the csv-file which you have exported before. Make sure that you have turned the import file type to Text Files. After that, the text Import Text Wizard comes up.

Step 1: Leave the default values as shwon here

Step 2: Choose the delimiter into Semicolon and select "First Row..." Button.

Step3: Select the existing Subscribers table instead of creating a new one.

Finally you will get a confirmation if the import has succeeded. As shown below all data was imported.