How to Upgrade to Office 2010 - Import Contacts
Importing Contacts into Outlook 2010
If you are upgrading to Office 2010, you might be slightly worried about whether or not your contacts will transfer over to the new version Microsoft Outlook that you’ll soon be using.
Thanks to Microsoft retaining the same file formats in their new version of Outlook, exporting and importing your contacts should be a straightforward task, requiring little more than a spare writable CD or DVD, or some other removable storage such as a USB pen drive (you might even also use a network drive or a separate partition on your hard disk drive).
When upgrading from an earlier version of Outlook to the new Microsoft Office 2010, you’ll need to follow a simple two-part process to migrate contacts from one version to the other:
• Export contacts from old version
• Import contacts into new version
Follow these steps to complete the Office 2010 import contacts process!
Export Contacts
To begin the process, you’ll need to export your contacts from the older version of Microsoft Office Outlook that you’re currently using.
This can be done by clicking on the contacts tab, then to File > Import and Export.
On the next screen, choose Export to a file, click Next and then select an export format – for contacts, a CSV should be fine; you can choose from the following formats for exporting:
CSV – comma separated values
PST – Microsoft’s primary format
Text – a simple text file
Once you have your preferred file format selected, click on Next, and select the data type you want to export. If you’re already in the Contacts folder, Contacts should be selected.
Again, click on next to choose a location and filename for your export file, and then when you’re happy with these, click on Export.
The Office 2010 Import Contacts Routine
Importing data into Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 is similarly straightforward, requiring only a few clicks.
To begin, open the application, then go to File > Open > Import to open the import data wizard.
Select Import from another program or file, then Next to move onto the next screen. Here, you will select the file type – this should match the extension of the file you exported from your old version of Outlook.
In the next screen, you will be able to browse for the file you created earlier. If you have no contacts already setup in your new Outlook 2010, you should proceed with either option selected; otherwise, choose between Replace duplicates with items imported, Allow duplicates to be created and Do not import duplicates, depending on your preference.
If you created a PST file for import, you will then be asked which folder to import data from – select the Contacts folder and Import items into the same folder in: options, using the drop-down menu to select the correct mailbox.
