Sharing Distribution Lists in Outlook

[marylee]

We are using Outlook 98. A co-worker has
several mail distribution lists in his
personal address book that I would like to
use. Is there a way to copy/share his
distribution lists? I am going to be working
on the same project and would like to avoid
recreating these lists if possible.

I have his .pab file and tried merging that
in but you can only have one "personal address book" service at a time.

ANY help much appreciated!!
Thanks
Marylee Wahl
ml.wahl@ps.net

[socalgal]

From MS Help

Add a Personal Address Book to a user profile

1 On the Tools menu, click Services.
2 On the Services tab, click Add.
3 In the Available information services box, click Personal Address Book.
4 Click OK.
5 On the Personal Address Book tab, enter a name for the Personal Address Book in the Name box.
6 In thePath box, enter the path of the Personal Address Book.
7 Click OK twice.
8 Exit and restart Outlook.

To add a Personal Address Book to a different user profile, double-click the Mail icon in Windows Control Panel. On the Services tab, click Show Profiles. On the General tab, click the profile you want in the Profile box, click Properties, and then perform steps 2-8 above.

If that doesn't work, let us know. If it does, let us know.

[marylee]

Thanks for the response.
However, I have already tried that and it
does not do what I need it to. Those
steps will let me use his .pab file for my
address book but then I cannot use my
current address book and would not be able
to access the distribution lists that I have
created for myself (it seems like you have to use one address book or the other).

What I want to do is to keep my current
mailing distribution lists AND be able to
add in the one my co-worker has created as
well. How can I do this? How can I copy
over one or more of his distribution lists
without getting rid of my own??

Thanks much!
Marylee Wahl
ml.wahl@ps.net

[800XL]

Ick, that is a sticky one. Before Outlook, you used to be able to Import a PAB into your own, but now all you can do is import it into your contacts folder. About the only way to do what you want is to use a system with good old Inbox installed and import his PAB into yours. You have to be careful with this as Installing Inbox will require that you reinstall Outlook 98 to get rid of it. Inbox can be installed on win95 by going into control panel, add/remove programs, and then opening the second tab and checking the box next to Mail and Messaging (something like that at least.) When you are done with it, reinstall OL98 right over the top of it or it is more likely that it will trash all of your profile settings. On Win98, I believe there is a file on the 98 cd in /tools/oldwin95 that lets you install it, not sure.

A good source for more info on Outlook, Inbox, and so forth: www.slipstick.com/exchange/ (http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/)

[socalgal]

That sounds better than "it can't be done" 800XL. Which is what I was told when I asked around.

Also, I was told that you could send those .pab files to your Contact list and use them from there. I don't have experience with doing this, but it may be something to think about.

[800XL]

You can use the import function in Outlook 98 (file -> Import) and bring the entries in a PAB file into your contacts. The problem is that the Contacts folder/address book does not support any kind of distribution lists. What you end up with is a contacts folder with everyone in every distro list from the pab. So if you have several lists and some people are in more than one list, you end up with multiple contacts for those people, one duplicate for each time they are listed in a distro list. Ugly eh? I have not tinkered with Outlook 2000 (Lookout 2000?) but I've heard they did add support for distro lists to the contacts folder. There may be a better answer than installing Inbox, but I have not had time to search it up.

One sort of side-step workaround would be to create a second outlook profile, a copy of you normal one, that uses the other PAB file. Then in Outlook 98 under tools -> options, mail services tab, change to "Prompt for profile to be used". This will let you pick which profile, and therefore which pab, you load up with when you start Outlook.
I think Microsoft wasn't thinking ahead when they took out the ability to import into a pab file. You might want to look around at Slipstick, or maybe even the Microsoft Knowledge Base for other answers. There may be a simpler way, or at least step by step instructions on how to work around it.

[Jin Vitas]

Me no understando why marylee no.. mako distributo list in her own pabo...

Just kiddin