Microsoft Outlook gives you the ability to copy data from many programs so that you can use that data in Outlook. For example, you might want to bring in existing information such as names and addresses from one of the following programs: Eudora, Lotus Organizer, or Microsoft Schedule+.

You also might want to convert your Personal Address Book (Personal Address Book: A customizable address book used to store personal e-mail addresses you use frequently. However, Contacts offers more advanced features for this function. Personal Address Book files have a .pab extension and can be copied to disk.), with its contact (contact: Person, inside or outside of your organization, about whom you can save several types of information, such as street and e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and Web page URLs.) information, to a Contacts folder. Do this by importing the contact information to the Contacts folder. Outlook contacts are fully integrated into Outlook, providing flexibility and customization that is not available in the Personal Address Book.

Note  You should not import items created in multiple languages or in a language that is not supported by your system code page to a file type that does not support Unicode. For example, if you have items created in multiple languages in a Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders file (.pst), you should not import the items to a Microsoft Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders file (.pst). This file type does not support Unicode and therefore any items containing characters in any language other than those supported by the system code page in text fields other than the body of items (item: An item is the basic element that holds information in Outlook (similar to a file in other programs). Items include e-mail messages, appointments, contacts, tasks, journal entries, notes, posted items, and documents.) such as To and Subject lines of messages, ContactName and BusinessTelephoneNumber properties of contact items will be intepreted incorrectly and will result in the display of '?'s and other unintelligible text.

To import information, use the Import and Export Wizard to move the contents of the file into a folder that you specify in Outlook.

Outlook gives you the ability to copy data, such as names and addresses, to several other programs, including Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft PowerPoint. For example, you might want to export your contacts to Excel so that you can sort names and addresses using a worksheet.

You can also export items to a Personal Folders file (.pst) (Personal Folders file (.pst): Data file that stores your messages and other items on your computer. You can assign a .pst file to be the default delivery location for e-mail messages. You can use a .pst to organize and back up items for safekeeping.) for safe keeping and save the file anywhere. A .pst file can be read only by Outlook. Folder design properties such permissions, rules, description, forms, and views are not preserved when you export to a Personal Folders file. Only the content itself is exported.

Note  You should not export items created in multiple languages or in a language that is not supported by your system code page to a file type that does not support Unicode. For example, if you have items created in multiple languages in a Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders file (.pst), you should not export the items to a Microsoft Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders file (.pst). This file type does not support Unicode and therefore any items containing characters in any language other than those supported by the system code page in text fields other than the body of items (item: An item is the basic element that holds information in Outlook (similar to a file in other programs). Items include e-mail messages, appointments, contacts, tasks, journal entries, notes, posted items, and documents.) such as To and Subject lines of messages, ContactName and BusinessTelephoneNumber properties of contact items will be intepreted incorrectly and will result in the display of '?'s and other unintelligible text.

Use the Import and Export Wizard to export items from Outlook.