No Sean not quite right.

You cannot SORT contacts by category. You must GROUP by category and there's
a view that does exactly that - just click it, there's nothing to "work
out".

FYI: As category is a multivalued field, Outlook will not sort by it.

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Trainer and Consultant www.pragmatix.com.au
My suggested settings for Outlook 2003 are FREE on my website.

..
"Sean" wrote in message
...
Thanks Judy.

So, my solution (I'm not sure why Microsoft insists on making everything
such a pain in the ...), If you can figure out how to sort your contacts
by
category, you can drag the category heading onto the mail tab, then click
ok
to the 'stupid message' and your set.

PS. Diane my Outlook 2007 doesn't have a Create menu.

"Judy Gleeson (MVP Outlook)" wrote:

What a challenge! For other readers if not for you Sean....

1 Start in the Contacts Folder.
2. Use a view that will group your Contacts By Category. The view is
called By Category.
3 Select the Category of Contacts to merge. "Select" means make them
highlighted. You can do that in many ways and at this stage I will
assume you know how to select items. But come back and ask if you don't
know how to select more than 1 thing at a time.
4. To email everyone in that Category, grab the Category heading (it
will
be a bar across the screen with the name of your Category group in it)
with
your left mouse button and drop it on your Inbox Folder. Release.
4a) Say Yes to the stupid message that creating a new item from these x
Items may take some time.
5. The names of Contacts in that Category are now in the To... field
of a
new email.
6. Complete the content and click the send button.

Explanations:

Item means an Outlook "thing" it could be any type of thing eg an
appointment, email, task, contact, note.

Navigation Pane - the left side strip of the screen in Outlook 2002,
2003
and 2007.

Views are way of seeing the content of a folder. You can change views
many
ways. In 2007, the Navigation Pain has radio buttons to change views.

Options:

1 if you don't want people in the To... field, once they are there,
highlight them all (select them) and drag them to the BCC field. If the
BCC
field is not showing (in version 2007) the setting is on the Options Tab
of
the ribbon at top of screen.

2. If you want to email merge to this category of Contacts it's a little
more complicated. Let me know if you want to know how.

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Trainer and Consultant www.pragmatix.com.au
My suggested settings for Outlook 2003 are FREE on my website.

..
"Sean" wrote in message
...
How do I do this. So far everyone's description is very complex or
wrong.
eg. right-click and choose "New Message to Contact" - this is not an
option
when I right-click.

Most of the explanations don't explain which page to start on Mail or
Contacts, so I'm lost right from the start.

Finally, why do all of these sound like a way to work around some f'up
by
microsoft. It seems like I've wasted my time making categories and I
should
have been making a contact list, but I can't place people in a contact
list
as I add them - I have to go edit the contact list after I create a new
contact.

Judy Gleeson, please don't help. I can't understand a word of your
posts.