Tipstaff

System Specs

Alright, before anyone goes, "Tipstaff doesn't know how to do this? Oh no, the world is coming to an end!" I just have to say, I forgot how to do this. Seriously, it’s been well over a year since I've looked into this, or done this, so yes, I need help. Here's the deal:

I have a client that is using Outlook Express 6, and I've finally convinced him to switch over to Outlook 2003. Reason being is that he is reaching the 2GB limit that OE has. If it gets any bigger it'll take a dump, and that will be the end of his stuff. On top of that he's using this for business, and has about 2000 email contacts in his address book. No problem, right? Just import everything, and off you go. Well, here's the problem: some of the contacts (100 or so) have Chinese text as their name.

No matter what I do I cannot get Outlook to import the Chinese text within the contact listing, or the name of the contact themselves. Every time Outlook imports the contacts with symbols or characters (usually ? ! * # and so fourth). At one time I heard of, and used some trick, and knew exactly what to do, but I'm stumped at the moment.

Here's what I've done:

- I made sure that Outlook has the added language support installed (done via Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings tool). Chinese Traditional and Simplified are all in there. In fact, Chinese text shows up in the emails just fine. Even the ones I imported did so just fine, Chinese text intact.

- Tried importing into Outlook, tried exporting via OE directly to Outlook (what a disaster that was), tried dragging/dropping from OE address book into Outlook Contacts (same effect as importing or copy/pasting contacts), tried exporting from OE to a csv file then importing into Outlook, and tried exporting/import vcf cards.

- I've even tried using a program called Address Magic which allows me to convert address books from any program into another program, yet had the same result. Address converts, but the names, or rather the Chinese text, doesn't.

If you guys have any ideas, or even some piece of software that you know that will work, please let me know.

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Tipstaff

System Specs

LOL! Stumped you guys, have I?

In any case, I've added something else to my try roster: Windows Mail. Same results though. The only thing left to try is getting a hold of a Chinese XP system, try importing the address book into a Chinese copy of Outlook, and then transfer the contacts from that PST file into the PST file on English system.

<sigh> Too much work. Maybe I'll just tell the guy to do it manually...

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