contact organization

I recently changed from OE to OL2007 on an XP system. They are sooo
different. I like the way OE allows you to organize your email Address Book
by groups and by distribution lists. I cannot find out how to do the same
with OL2007. I have spent hours changing "display as" entries and
categorizing. The categories appear in Contacts but not in the email Address
Book. In addition, contacts mysteriously disappear, duplicate themselves,
and reverse first-name/last-name order. I believe my basic problem is I
don't know how Outlook manages the data and, therefore I'm causing the
problems. All I want to do is create groups and distrubution lists within my
email Address Book, but apparently anytime I change or add a new Contact, it
causes changes in my email Address Book. Any thoughts?

Outlook doesn't do "groups" - you could sort them into folders but that is
really a really bad way to manage contacts and you could end up with a lot
more duplicates. http://www.slipstick.com/contacts/oloabcat.htm

The address book is just a view containing only contacts with electronic
addresses.

Use categories to replace the groups and if you know who you want to send
to, type their name in the To field and let outlook go look for the name -
use To only when you forget who you want to send to. To send to the whole
"group" use the By Category view and Actions, Create, New message to...
http://www.slipstick.com/tutorials/category/dl.htm



--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
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"jarhead" wrote in message
...
I recently changed from OE to OL2007 on an XP system. They are sooo
different. I like the way OE allows you to organize your email Address
Book
by groups and by distribution lists. I cannot find out how to do the same
with OL2007. I have spent hours changing "display as" entries and
categorizing. The categories appear in Contacts but not in the email
Address
Book. In addition, contacts mysteriously disappear, duplicate themselves,
and reverse first-name/last-name order. I believe my basic problem is I
don't know how Outlook manages the data and, therefore I'm causing the
problems. All I want to do is create groups and distrubution lists within
my
email Address Book, but apparently anytime I change or add a new Contact,
it
causes changes in my email Address Book. Any thoughts?

Outlook does not have anything called groups. It uses Distribution Lists.
Clarify what you want to do that you think you can't.
Outlook has placed all its sorting and filtering options into views of your
Contacts Folders. The address book view is a deprecated feature with very
limited sort options and no filtering or grouping options.

--
Russ Valentine
"jarhead" wrote in message
...
I recently changed from OE to OL2007 on an XP system. They are sooo
different. I like the way OE allows you to organize your email Address
Book
by groups and by distribution lists. I cannot find out how to do the same
with OL2007. I have spent hours changing "display as" entries and
categorizing. The categories appear in Contacts but not in the email
Address
Book. In addition, contacts mysteriously disappear, duplicate themselves,
and reverse first-name/last-name order. I believe my basic problem is I
don't know how Outlook manages the data and, therefore I'm causing the
problems. All I want to do is create groups and distrubution lists within
my
email Address Book, but apparently anytime I change or add a new Contact,
it
causes changes in my email Address Book. Any thoughts?