IMPORTING ADDRESS BOOKS INTO PALM PDAS Not a simple task. An example of challenges in importing an address book file is that to copy from Client Manager 2000 into Palm Desktop the two address lines (street number and apartment number) must somehow be combined into one or a custom field created for one of them (which does not suit Palm's address book side all-in-one-view pane, and fields in the export from CM2000 must be de-selected before each export because Desktop cannot de-select manually). It is more efficient to massage the .CSV in Excel, using a macro or template, then import into Desktop - but creating the template is a laborious process. You may need Desktop 4.10 or later to import .CSV files, as with 4.0.1 an address book manually imported into Desktop was not visible on the Palm 500. TEMPLATE But PalmOne Knowledge Base Solution ID 2597 "How to use Address Book custom import templates" details creation of templates to align (map) fields during import, including combining fields, specifics of template format, and traps. Templates can be created for Comma- or Tab-Separated Variable file formats - most software can export to at least one of those. Once I figured it out and got everything in line it worked well. Import is quick but sync of large address books takes time. I now have six books totalling 750K as .CSV files, about 1800 entries, which occupy about 250K in my Palm 500 (only some of the fields were imported). Not bad for a little thing like that. :-) (That article and Knowledge Base Solution ID 2136 which lists address book fields are hard to find on the PalmOne web site. Search for tpa in the ask-question box (that being the file name extension for templates). Article 2597 was at http://www.palmone.com/us/support/helpnotes/palmapps/tpahelp.html but may have moved. Searching by words returned other more general unnumbered articles without template specifics. Beware that in general Palm articles are not up to date and need editting for clarity by a user who is going through the steps in reality. (I've seen errors in articles covering the insignificant subject of recovering from problems encountered in updating the Palm o/s. :-) CAUTION: I am working through this again, trying to make sense of what I now see in Desktop 414. My original template seems to work, and a revised version imports into Desktop 414's new Birthday field (and did not crash anything during synch (my Palm does not support that field). However when importing using a much simpler template something is causing 414 to name all five phone fields as Work, regardless of what is selected as the "primary contact" field (in the display of that contact list in both right pane and Edit Contact) and what default name arrangement is selected in Preferences. As well, address field names are not provided in the right pane. The phenomenon is not caused by leaving some early fields nor some phone fields empty in the template. The left column of the Import dialogue reflects names defined in the template, but the actual display in Desktop is always Work. Information on use of template: - import fields can be combined into one Palm field, with separator characters of user's choice (characters placed in quotation marks in the template). - phone fields are complex. A field name line must follow the data mapping line. That second line must have the next number in sequence thus later simple fields don't have the number you might count in Desktop's list (except you can omit the Palm sequence number of a field you don't want to put anything in). (Palm's regular names show in the address book in Desktop and on the Palm. But you must have a name type of entry for each phone field in the template to maintain the number sequence for field matching.) - Custom fields must be handled like Phone fields. The name you specify will actually be used (and will migrate to the Custom field name boxes in Tools|Preferences). - However, it appears that the name is not synched into the Palm 500 with os410 (the field names are displayed as "Custom x). - Default names for the phone fields and labels of custom fields can be set under Tools|Preferences. (I don't know where the "default" names in the pull-down menu for the phone fields come from, but suspect the first template used.) I suspect that overides whatever you define in the template. A change in Preferences will reflect in the Palm fields in the left column of the Import dialogue and in the New Contact dialogue box, for all Contact lists not just the one you had in view when you set Preferences. - In some cases the field name block at the beginning of a .csv file will show as a contact in the imported contact list. - "Note" does not need a label specified. - "Private" is the check box in Palm Address Book. - The template simply matches field numbers in the Palm and import file. For example, CSV,CSV (Sample Template)|*.CSV| 0,1 1,10,", ",11 19,5 20, E-Mail will put import field 1 into Palm field 0, import fields 10 and 11 into Palm field 1 with comma+space between them, and import field 5 into Palm field 19 which will have the defined name "E-Mail". (Header is for a comma-separated-variable file; the Import dialogue will identify this template as "CSV (Sample Template)".) - The order of fields seems to be original Palm not the sequence you can move fields to in the left column of the import dialogue box (a drag-to-place capability is provided there, which I have used with non-template import - it is not saved. When using a template that left column shows the field names specified in the import template for any fields whose name must be defined, rather than Palm's generic names such as "Custom 1". The list in the right column is the field names defined in the header of the imported file in the sequence they are mapped to left column of the template not the sequence in the imported file. (However those names will not be used - only the Palm names or the defined names. If your software's export does not make a header it will be useful to add one using a text editor, to check the matching of fields.) Thus the two columns in the import dialogue box should match to the extent you wanted. Details of mapping: > For defined-name fields both columns should show the name you defined. If one doesn't you've made a mistake in your template. > Even combined fields show up. For example, the import dialogue for my mapping shows "Address1" in the left column in line with "Address 1, Address 2" in the right since I combined them with a comma+space separator. > If a Palm sequence number is omitted the right column will have a blank line (thus the Palm field will have no data in it). > Note that computer convention is to begin numbering with 0, i.e. the list sequence is 0, 1, 2, ..... in both Palm and the imported file. > if you try to stuff a defined name in the wrong place you may get a hopelessly wrong and incomplete matching. (This is like writing software - one small slip and you get results you didn't imagine could occur. :-) Yes, BTDT - I tried to stuff a name into the new Birthday field, which is fixed name, and only two fields showed in the right column, one of them a field that was in the import file but not in the template.) > I repeat: make sure you begin field number sequence with zero not one, and count carefully with two-count for each Phone and Custom field. - The PalmOne KB article on importing using Excel as intermediary has a field list that may represent Desktop 4.10 and earlier, as does Knowledge Base Solution ID 2136. - The existing address book must be deleted from Desktop before importing a revised one, else duplicate entries will occur. (OTOH, that facilitates merging two books into the Palm.) - Alas, REM and ; comment prefixes do not work to add notes in the template file (unlike typical PC software which ignores them during execution). Palm's template file is a simple text file you can create with a simple editor like Notepad. (There is a caution about carriage returns, but I did not have any difficulty creating a template by modifying the sample Lotus20 template that was in Desktop 410's directory but not in 414's directory. See http://www.keithsketchley.com/keithtpa.txt for a sample - give yours a file name you can recognize, use .TPA for file name extension, and include a recognizable identification in the file header because that is what will be listed in the Import dialogue.) - Import of a .csv file seems insensitive to having quotation marks around each data item (having comma separators for CSV, of course) and to having a comma at the end of each data block (having a carriage return after the comma, of course). Manual Import A file can be manually imported by selecting its format in the pull-down menu at the bottom of the dialogue box (such as *.csv) then dragging items in the Palm side of the listings per on-screen instructions. I doubt that phone or custom field names will follow the file being imported, but I do know that the new order is not saved by Desktop thus each import is a new excercise. (Note that Address Book Archive is one of the available formats.) SYNCH WITH Client Manager 2000 While CM claims to be able to sync address books with a Palm, nothing is actually done when CM goes through the motions. CM2000's capability is designed for Palm o/s 3 and 3.5 whereas I tried it with o/s 4.10 & Desktop 4.0.1. (Logically CM would have to create an export file that matched Palm's fields then communicate with the Palm over the connected path such as USB.) The Palm template method is better because it can merge fields and use only the fields you tell it to - see above. Synch in General Note that you may want "synch", a two-way process, whereas "import" is a one-way process thus does not capture changes made in address data on the Palm device (you could instead capture such information as Memos or Notes for later manual integration). CM2000 has a choice of synch or only update in either direction at your choice. Palm and Desktop can synch changes made in either, and Desktop can export to a .CSV file that you could import into other Address Book software to update its database (by creating a template in it - as CM2000 can do in theory - and/or massaging the file in Excel). You may want to use only Palm Desktop with your Palm device as your address book software, foregoing capabilities such as extra data fields and merging into a word processor to customize form letters or do mailings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright Keith Sketchley August 04, 2004 (1310PDT) Legalities detailed on http://www.keithsketchley.com/ apply. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To return to my main PDA page copy http://www.keithsketchley.com/pda.txt into your browser's URL window. To go to my Palm Desktop software page copy http://www.keithsketchley.com/palmdesk.txt into your browser's URL window.