Contacts Listed Alphabetically in Address Book

A reader wrote that she sorted her Address Book in Outlook Express alphabetically, but the names appear in random order when she goes to look for a particular address.

This is why we keep our contact lists in a spreadsheet, rather than use the Address Books in any of the various email services* we use. Not only is it easier to sort items in a spreadsheet, it's easier to add and remove names, along with being easier to put different groups into their own columns (such as Personal, Business, or School, etc.).

The spreadsheet can be kept on your Desktop, where it can be opened with a double-click, or you can put a Shortcut icon in Quick Launch, where a single click will open it. The desired email addresse(s) can then be mouse-selected, copied (Ctrl+C) and pasted (Ctrl+V) into the To: or Bcc: (blind carbon copy) fields of an outgoing message.

We use Excel, but other spreadsheets work the same way. If you prefer, the list(s) can be kept in a Word document, where alphabetizing a column is done by clicking Table>Sort. Word 2007/2010 users will click on A/Z under the Home tab..

Having one's Address Book in a separate document precludes the problem we hear almost daily: "I've changed email services. How do I copy my contact list from my old service to the new one?"

Although some email services have Address Book Import/Export options, it's usually easier to use your current service's procedure for clicking all your contacts into the To: field, from where you can cut and paste them into a separate document.

PowerPoint Not Starting Automatically

Rod Moses wrote that he uses OpenOffice to run PowerPoint presentations, but that a file won't run automatically when he double-clicks it, even though he's used "Open With" to designate OpenOffice as his default presentation program.

This appears to be a peculiarity of PowerPoint, since we've heard the same complaint from others. Well, a simple work-around is to press F5 on the keyboard to make a PowerPoint slide-show start running.

View Pane in Outlook Express

Phillip Denham called to ask how to enable/disable the View Pane in Outlook Express. These options can be found under View>Layout, where you can also opt to have the pane displayed below or alongside an email.

Some Wonderful Paintings

Mary and I frequently receive email attachments from folks who want to share - but we rarely pass them on with this newsletter. However, Don Sheffler sent us a PowerPoint slide-show of some wonderful paintings that we just couldn't keep to ourselves: RobertDuncansPaintings.pps
    If the slide-show doesn't start automatically, press F5 on your keyboard. If you encounter a request for a password, just click on Cancel to bypass it.
    The artist is Robert Duncan and the paintings appear to have been done mostly in the 1940s. Personally, I consider his artwork on a par with Norman Rockwell - in fact, I am enjoying these even more. Here is just a snippet of what's in the paintings:
Robert Duncan Studios

*Mary and I have email accounts with Gmail, AIM Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail, and Outlook Express. Gmail is our favorite, but we also like AIM Mail.
    If you would prefer not to receive this free newsletter please click Reply and type UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject line. Thank you!


© Donald Ray Edrington – All Rights Reserved

Top of Page

Don Edrington - Computer Columnist for The Californian and San Diego's North County Times

Senior Computer Tutor
Don Edrington

Home Page       About Don




Free Newsletter

If you would like to receive our weekly newsletter just send an email to Mary Hanson at: ComputerTutorTeam@gmail.com.
Mary Janese Hanson   There are no fancy sign-up forms – just mention newsletter in the subject line of your email.
  We've been sending out this PC Help Newsletter since 1994, and it contains no advertising of any kind – just useful computer tips.
  Furthermore, your email address is safe with us – we don't share it with anyone under any conditions whatsoesver.