Windows 8 Bible

Importing and Exporting Contacts

Importing allows you to copy contacts from external programs into your Contacts folder. Exporting lets you copy contacts to another program or a format that’s compatible with an outside program. We start this section with importing.

Importing people to your contacts folder

You can import names and addresses from the following formats into your Windows Contacts folder:

• CSV (Comma-Separated Values): This is a generic format to which many programs can export data. You start in the other program by exporting names and addresses to a CSV file. Then you open your Contacts folder and import the CSV file you created from the original program.
• LDIF (LDAP server): Use this format to import contacts from a directory server that uses Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).
• vCard (VCF file): This format is used by many programs to store virtual business card data. In contrast to other options described here, you might use this format to import a single contact whose data is stored in a .vcf file.
• WAB (Windows Address Book): This format imports contacts from the .wab file used by Windows Address Book and Outlook Express in earlier versions of Windows. Typically, you find that file in the x:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book folder, where x is the disk drive and UserName is the name of the user account.

If the data you want to import isn’t already in one of these formats, open the program that you normally use to manage ...