Finally - my address book has been uploaded.

One week on with the new computer.

Initially I tried the obvious thing: export contacts from Entourage as a tab-separated file, which was then imported into excel and converted toa comma separated file (.csv) before re-importing into outlook. Except it didn't work.

All the names came over, and just 1 field with phone numbers: all the rest were blank.

OK, not to be put off, I deleted all those, then created a new contact with all the appropriate fields filled in: emails, various phone numbers, postal address etc. Export to a .csv file - all I got was a name and 1 (mobile) phone number. All the right headers were there, but none of the additional data I'd entered. Nuts.

So back to google - in more than 1 sense of the word.

Microsoft will import data from Google - if you link accounts (Meh, but OK for now) - which in retrospect I probably didn't need to do, but it DID make it easy for me to find and access all the contacts Google stores from my phone (you can imagine how much I don't like this because of privacy, though I DID know Google stores ALL my information anyway). There were a LOT of duplicates there (>1100 contacts) and I spent 2 hours this morning going through and editing, deleting and combining contacts to get down to a list that STILL has duplicates, somehow (Randall - your details are listed 5 times!). The final step after the editing was to export contacts as.... you guessed it.... a .csv file. The option was there to export as a .vcard file too, so I did that straight afterward).

So went back as usual, did the 'import as .csv file' and was offered for the first time, choices over what fields I want in my contacts list. Hit OK and bam, there's all the contacts, addresses, multiple email addresses, phone numbers, the lot, all where they should be.

I wonder if I'd have been better off just sertting down to plug them in by hand (the answer is yes, in that I could have got the lot in - 700 odd - in a working day, though it would have been mind-numbing). But at least now I have contacts it feels like I can continue to work properly: being contactless is unsettling.