Create an Email Address Book
from your Q&A Contacts Database
by Tom Marcellus
TODAY, more and more people are using email to communicate with friends and associates. If
you store email addresses in a Q&A database, and you use the popular Eudora Pro or
Microsoft Outlook email program, it’s easy to create an address book you can use to
quickly send email to your contacts (even broadcast email messages to all your contacts at
the same time). First, the technique for Eudora Pro, followed by the one for Outlook 98.
Eudora Pro
Start by creating a Q&A report named Email addresses. At the Retrieve Spec,
select the records that contain an email address. At the Column/Sort Spec, type 1,AS,I
in the name (full name) field, and 2,I in the email address field. Press F8 and
create this derived column:
Heading: \
Formula: "Alias " + @Chr(34) + #1 + @Chr(34) + " <" + #2 +
">"
Col Spec: 3, HS(\ )
Print the report to a disk file named C:\Eudora\Nickname\QAemail.txt. (Your path to Eudora might be different.) Start Eudora Pro, open your main address book, and at the end of it you should see a QAemail address book. Double-click on it, and your list of Q&A email contacts should appear.
If there's a problem with the address book, display the QAemail.txt ASCII file in Write. The addresses should be in the following format:
Alias "Freddy Jones"
<fjones@somewhere.com>
Alias "Jennie Anderson" <jenniea@wherever.com>
If they're not, then you probably goofed up somewhere in the Report Spec.
Now, you can send email to the contacts in your Q&A database as you would any other Eudora address book recipient. To update the address book, simply run your report periodically and overwrite the QAemail.txt file.
Microsoft Outlook 98
In Q&A, design a report that creates the export file
for Outlook:
1. Select Report / Design a Report and type in the pertinent database name.
2. Name the report something like "E-mail Info to Outlook" and choose Columnar as the type of report.
3. At the Retrieve Spec for the report, Type /= (slash equals sign) in the E-mail address field and type /= in the Full Name field.
4, At the Column/Sort Spec, type 1,AS,I in the Last Name field, 2,I in the Full Name field, and 3,I in the E-mail address field.
5. Press F8 for Derived Columns, and fill in the first derived column exactly as follows:
Heading: "Name","E-Mail Address"
Formula: @Chr(34) + #2 + @Chr(34) + "," + @Chr(34) + #3 + @Chr(34)
Column/Sort Spec: 4,HS(\ )
6. At the Define Page screen, make the following settings:
Page width.: 240 Page length..: 1000
Left margin: 0 Right margin.: 240
Top margin.: 0 Bottom margin: 0
Increase your page length if the database contains more than 1,000 persons with email addresses. (Set the page length to a value that’s somewhat higher than the number of records you’re including.)
7. At the Print Options screen, select print to DISK. (The report should be set to print single-spaced and justified Left.)
8. Print to a filename such as QANAMES.CSV and make a note of where you saved the file.
In Outlook 98:
1. Select File / New / Folder
2. Name the new folder something like QANames (you can name it whatever you want) and select the location for it. Leave the "Folder Contains" field as is ("Contact Items").
3. Select the folder from the Folder List if it isn’t already selected.
4. Select File / Import and Export.
5. Select Import from Another Program or File.
6. Select Comma Separated Values (DOS) as the type of file to import.
7. Browse for the QANAMES.CSV file you created in Q&A and select it.
8. Select the destination folder (QANAMES or whatever you named it).
9. Click Finish to run the import.
When the import has finished, all the names and e-mail addresses should appear in Last Name order in the address book.
These procedures written by Tom Marcellus, editor of The Quick Answer
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Last modified: December 11, 2006