You can do IT is a regular feature of laterlife.com aimed at trying to help laterlife visitors make the most of Information Technology on or off the web.     

Jackie Sherman who runs the You can do IT Question & Answer section is an IT trainer and author. Jackie has spent her career in education and specialises in teaching IT to adults. Her courses for adults include such topics as MS Office, the Internet, e-mail and basic web page authoring.

Jackie has also written the four books shown here - you can find more details about these by clicking on the cover images above. Jackie has also been running a course specifically for over 50s.  

Via laterlife.com Jackie aims to particularly help those new to IT and the web to build up knowledge and confidence, so no question is too basic. At the same time she will cover Q&As for the more experienced user.  

So if you would like to ask a question of Jackie, why not email her jackie@laterlife.com

Or if you have discovered something which may be of interest to others in making the most of the web, then she would love to hear about that too jackie@laterlife.com

View previous editions of YoucandoIT for more useful Questions and Answers

September 2010

This month, I am going to answer two different queries about email address books.

Q: How can I create a copy of my Outlook Express address book? I am worried that the system may suddenly fail and I won't be able to access all these important details. If I have a copy, I can keep it separate and safe.

A: The quick way to make a copy of all your contacts is to create a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file. This is rather like a spreadsheet and can be opened in both Excel and Word.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open Outlook Express and click File – Export – Address Book.
2. Select the Text File option and click Export.
3. Give the file a name e.g. addressbook and Browse for a suitable location to save it to e.g. create a new folder named Addresses in My Documents. If you are going to create a new address book elsewhere (see next question) you can save the file temporarily on your desktop.
4. Click Next and tick all the categories (fields) you want to store the details under (or take off ticks for those you don't want). You can have as many or as few as you like, but obviously you will include Name (or First and Last Name) and Email Address.

5. Click Finish and the file will be created.

6. Click OK in the extra window that will appear and then Close and go and check the file. It will display several columns containing all the address details you have chosen to save.

Q: I now use Google mail and want to use my list of contacts saved in Outlook Express. How do I transfer them across?

A: Having created a CSV file of the addresses by following the guidance above, it is now a simple step to Import it into Google. To do this:

1. Open Gmail
2. Go to Contacts – Import Contacts.
3. Click Browse and locate the CSV file on your computer.
4. Click Import and the list will be made available in your Gmail account.

 

 

View previous editions of YoucandoIT for more useful Questions and Answers
 

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