Using Proper Addresses from Outlook

Many people use Outlook to help manage their address lists and other contact information. Being a member of the Office family of products, Outlook provides a high degree of compatibility with Word. But that doesn't mean you won't have problems from time to time. For instance, subscriber David Lewis wrote recently about a problem he was having getting the home address from Outlook into Word when he tried to insert addresses from the address book.

The rules followed by Word when inserting addresses are pretty strict. Those rules are, interestingly enough, defined by an AutoText entry named AddressLayout. Long-time WordTips readers know that I have covered how to work with AutoText entries in other issues of WordTips. But the bottom line is that if you change the AddressLayout entry, you change what information is imported from Outlook and placed in your Word document when you insert an address from the address book. If you don't change the AddressLayout entry, it doesn't matter what else you do--you won't get what you want.

By default, the AddressLayout entry looks something like this:

{<PR_GIVEN_NAME>} {<PR_SURNAME>
}{<PR_COMPANY_NAME>
}{<PR_STREET_ADDRESS>
}{<PR_LOCALITY>}, {<PR_STATE_OR_PROVINCE>}{<PR_POSTAL_CODE>
}

With all these braces, the AddressLayout entry many look suspiciously like it contains field codes; it does not. Those braces are really braces--they are not field codes. Assuming you understand how to change AutoText entries (you really did read those earlier issues of WordTips, didn't you?), then the trick becomes learning what Outlook field names you can use in your AddressLayout. For that information it is best to refer to a Microsoft KnowledgeBase article or two. If you are using Word 97, refer to article Q141874. If you are using Word 2000, you should refer to article Q211424. You can, of course, access these KnowledgeBase articles online at the following addresses:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q141/8/74.asp
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q211/4/24.asp

If you want more in-depth information about how this AddressLayout entry works, you can also check out the following KnowledgeBase article (Q134901):

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q134/9/01.asp