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Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Oldjim
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Reading Outlook pst files with another program

I am thinking of switching to Open Office but one problem is that all my emails are in Outlook.
Is there a method of converting or exporting them so that a standard email package will read them.
Alternatively do any of the other email programs read Outlook pst files
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jelv
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Thunderbird has an Import function which will read from Outlook files so it wouldn't surprise me if Open Office had the same. (If it doesn't you could configure Thunderbird to connect to the mail servers using IMAP, import all the messages to Thunderbird, then create folders on the Plusnet mail server and copy all the messages you want to keep to those folders, then pick them all up again using Open Office. )
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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Oldjim
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

I should have mentioned I have about 1 GB of messages in various archive pst files
jelv
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

It's a while since I looked at OpenOffice, so I've just gone for a look - I can't see an email client in there!
If that is the case, and you want to stop using Outlook I recommend you use Thunderbird.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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the_groundsman
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

I was going to go down this road when I had a problem with Outlook. I installed Thunderbird and on first run it prompted me to import. I did but ran into all sorts of issues with Avast not liking the way Thunderbird was importing (False alarm). Anyway the whole thing failed to import. I also have a number of old archives that are quite large.
Sorry not to have a happy endding but I would be inclined to disable your AV and obviously shut down outlook and come off line for the duration of the import.
Functionality wise Thunderbird seemed to do pretty much what I needed on the EMail front but dont think it had a calendar solution like outlook
good luck - might be a perilous journey though. I decided to stick with old outlook
jelv
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Quote from: the
but dont think it had a calendar solution like outlook

Oh yeah? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313
Quote
Upgrade Thunderbird to a full Personal Information Manager with Lightning. It allows you to manage your daily schedule (events and tasks) directly within Thunderbird.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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the_groundsman
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Good point - there is always a Mozilla extension/addon for almost everything
jelv
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Lightning is rather more than just an add-on - it's being developed by an official Mozilla project team.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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samuria
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

You can export in outlook to all sorts of file eml being the most commonly used  and you should be able to input that in to most clients. Most clients will import from Outlook anyway
Oldjim
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

As far as I can tell the only way to import from Outlook is to have Outlook running and import using IMAP - not sure how that would work with archive folders.
Actually I have bit the bullet and ordered a copy of Office 2003 student edition which gives effectively 6 installs which will cover the users in the family for the next few rebuilds. What I hadn't realised before is that an uninstall doesn't release a license.
(I wasn't going to touch Office 2007 at any price - what is even sillier is that Office 2007 won't work with Outlook 2003 so I couldn't even use the 2007 student edition as it doesn't include Outlook)
HPsauce
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Quote from: Oldjim
Office 2003 student edition which gives effectively 6 installs

Only 3 I believe.
Jamie_Hardy
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Try zimbra, its a very nice email program which is a lot like outlook and has an Outlook PST Import Wizard  Smiley  http://www.zimbra.com/products/desktop_download.html http://wiki.zimbra.com/index.php?title=Outlook_PST_Import_Wizard_Tips
Oldjim
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Quote from: HPsauce
Only 3 I believe.
That is certainly what the EULA says but the standard EULA allows an activation on a desktop and a laptop assuming you are not using both at once.
The student license I am using at the moment ran out after 6 activations so it will be interesting to see what the new one does before I need to phone Microsoft
Either way it is much more flexible than an OEM version (best price is 3 x OEM = 1 x student and teacher)
This is the bit which I like in the EULA
Quote
13.        SOFTWARE TRANSFER. Internal. You may transfer a copy of the Software to a different device. If following such transfer the Software would be installed on more than three (3) devices, you must completely remove the Software from the former device. .
hulls
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

Quote from: Oldjim
(I wasn't going to touch Office 2007 at any price - what is even sillier is that Office 2007 won't work with Outlook 2003 so I couldn't even use the 2007 student edition as it doesn't include Outlook)

Hi Oldjim
I was considering getting the Home and Student version of Office 2007 (around £59 from Amazon) Is there are reason you wouldn't touch it?  Undecided
John
Oldjim
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Re: Reading Outlook pst files with another program

First - it doesn't include Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003 won't work properly
Second - reading the reviews  you have an effectively non customisable ribbon bar - I like my personalised toolbar and the menus which I understand
Here are some of the reviews from Amazon
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Microsoft takes a lot of stick, not all of it deserved. I for one quite liked windows 95 and 98 and indeed xp. I've also happily used the office range of programs for about 12 years and as a result I find them extremely simple to use. Vista annoyed me though, it's cumbersome, slow and has many utterly pointless additions and interface changes. Still, it happily ran office 2003 so I didn't mind too much. Sadly i lost my spare copy of 2003 when my laptop harddrive crashed, so I replaced it with this.
And that brings me here... it's late, I want to get a graph done of some consumption functions and I open excel to do so. But it's not excel as I know it. In order to justify yet another rerelease of what is essentially the same software as 2003 they've changed the interfaces, they've changed the menus, the names of tasks and even the way you tell excel what data to include in a graph. That goes for all the other office programs. For some reason they felt that it was a great idea to strip out the menu system which is common to every other major software program I can think of and replaced it with a 'ribbon' which has more pretty graphics. Maybe if you're an entirely new user this will make it easier, but i doubt it. If you're an existing user with a decent experience base they've just invalidated all that experience. I now know as much about MS office as I did when i was 13. I honestly wouldn't mind if I felt this was a great leap forward in the design of interfaces, but it's not, it's just more pretty icons and it'll probably be gone by the next edition.
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They attempt to fix it. The end result is an insanely unorthadox formatting system that rather than simplifing documents, makes life alot slower and frustrating; particularly when you're due to write an essay for University.
Why change the old layout of tabs and formatting tools? The new look/set-up may look cleaner and more modern in an attempt to look Mac-Like, but it fails because rather than simply choosing an option from a drop down menu, you have to traul through silly tabs on a new chunky bar above the document (for Word) while PowerPoint isn't even worth starting on...
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Just don't upgrade is all I can say.
Yes you can make PDF's easily. But there are 000's of websites that will do it for you for free anyway. And this, and this along with better colour schemes are about the only obvious "Pro" for this software.
Everything else, I mean everything is worse than Office 2003. I speak as an advanced user of Powerpoint and Excel. Things like pivot tables in Excel 2007 are far worse, editing charts is a nightmare (though of course you can choose far more colour schemes if you are that way inclined), and doing concise but detailed presentations that do not involve animations is very difficult.
And of course there is the whole challenge of a new menu structure, which takes weeks to relearn (and takes up more room on the screen, so worse for laptop users...)
The whole emphasis has been to make a suite of software that is great for High School students doing a project (e.g. fancy graphics etc), but for anyone with a more serious purpose in mind just don't make the transition. It is not worth it.
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If you are familiar with Excel 1997 or 2003, and are not a user Clicking on menus but use mostly shortcuts and menu undescores to surf through menus and submenus, Office 2007 will be a true nightmare: you will have to learn it all back again. To me, consultant, learning the new Word is such a enormous waste of time, that I unistalled it right away. For Excel, well, confronted with the limits of memory management in the previous version of Excel, I had no choice than to switch to Office 2007. The price is dear : what Excel does is basically unchanged, however, the way to do it, is completely modified. Microsoft has been so disregarding for its users' needs, that it quietly informs them, that all classic menus are gone, irrevocably : you will use their "Ribbon"!
If you can still get the 30 day free trial from Microsoft I would recommend trying it first.