Export Contacts Info
Before exporting, you need to select contacts either in the People List, the Companies List or the search results.
Export to XML
The command will export selected contacts into an XML file, which could be imported into another database of Open Contacts. This function is handy for transferring contact info between friends. For example, you may send the XML file to you friend by Email, and you friend could import the file into the address book of Open Contacts. Based on this feature, synchronizing your own personal contact info to your friends' address books is easy.
Notes:
If you want to share contact info between staffs in the same office with Local Area Network, you may consider using network mode of Open Contacts.
Copy to clipboard as indented text
This command will export selected contacts as indented text to clipboard. You may then paste the text from clipboard to any text editor for further processing.
Copy Current Section to Clipboard
In the Edit window, select a section by focusing on the section name box or any field box of the section, then press "Ctrl+E", you will get field contents separated by line breaks.
For example, If you focus on the Address section, you will get text like below
62, Radke Road
Fenlin
NSW
2063
This feature is handy for printing a single mailing label.
Export to CSV/Excel
In Open Contacts, data fields are grouped in sections, therefore, You need to define which fields of sections will be exported. The mapping will be saved in an XML file.
Step 1: Define the mapping between columns of the CSV file and Fields of Open Contacts
Basic info like full name, surname and notes etc. will be all exported. You will need to define which sections and fields will be exported.
Run command [Main menu -> Tools -> Export -> CSV -> Add CSV Export Template], you will get the following window.
In this window, you will add sections and fields as you can do in the edit window of a contact. The difference is, that you don't need to input field values. To remove/ignore a field/section, you may simply clear the field/section name. You may then press OK to save the settings into an XML file.
Step 2: Export to CSV with predefined mapping
After selecting contacts from either the People List or the Company List, run command [Main menu -> Tools -> Export -> CSV -> to CSV], then you will open an XML file of the export template you defined, then save the results into a CSV file.
In the example above, the CSV file will have 18 columns, including 6 columns of basic info and 12 columns of fields of sections.
Hints:
The template should include all sections and fields you want to export. As the data fields of Open Contacts are dynamic and flexible, those data fields without filled values will be empty in the CSV file. For example, for David Smith, you only input Private Phone and Private Mobile, and the CSV file will have other columns empty. Though Open Contacts does not impose restriction on how you can define section names and field names, if you want to export info frequently, you have better to keep consistent naming conventions for section names and field names.
After exporting data into a CSV file, you may print contacts in desired formats using a good label printing software like Avery DesignPro through ODBC data connection.
Export to HTML
Basically Open Contacts exports selected contacts to XML and then merge the XML data with an XSL style sheet to produce HTML data into file or Internet Explorer. You can use a Web browser to print the result.
In the "Import/Export" tab of the Options window, you may define "HTML target of exporting".
If you have some advanced knowledge of XML/XSL, you may customize the looks of HTML results. Please refer to "XML Explained".