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Outlook 2003 new message to: field

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5 replies

by sue t

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When creating a new message and clicking on to: to select the people you are sending to, or even when just starting to type the person's name in the to: field is there a way to get it to look at last names when it looks for possible matches for you to choose from? We have found that we have to start typing the person's first name in order to get a match and since we are not always sure of the person's first name we would like to be able start entering a last name and get possible matches to come up. Is there a way to do this?

5 replies

by jj2000

Hi Sue,
Usually you should be able to type a partial name (first or last) and Outlook will find a match or matches- it might take a moment- you may find that it doesn't register until you're in another section (eg Subject line or body of the email).
jj

by sue t

Poster rated this answer. I tried several times and waited more than 2 minutes and I never got any matches even when I entered the person's complete last name. Thank you for answering.

by lord foul

In your contacts you need to store the persons name, under the File As: area as surname,firstname.
OR
when you key in the persons name in the the To: field, type just their surname (or a part of the surname)and use the ctrl+K shortcut to check if the name exists in the contacts section of Outlook.

by sue t

Poster rated this answer. The contacts are stored under File As area as lastname, firstname. They tell me that this only happens with contacts they have entered since they moved to Outlook and I exported the contacts from their old mail program to Excel and then imported them into Outlook. So why it works with the imported ones and not the new ones does not make sense. Everything looks identical when you open a new one and compare it with one of the imported ones. I could not even find one field where anything was different. Thank you for the shortcut and it does help but it still takes a little more time so they would still like to find a solution.

by pingdash

iam aware of CTRL+K switch but the problem is the key key itself is not working.iam using outlook2003 sp2.can u guide me to solve this issue.

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