I had to do a clean reinstall of El Capitan on my MBAir yesterday, after I backed everything up manually by dragging everything to my LaCie - as advised by an Apple phone tech. But after the EC reinstall, when I dragged my Office for Mac 2011 folder back into my apps folder, I got a message saying that Office couldn't reinstall fully. So I searched here for how to make it work; a similar question by somebody else here got the advice to completely uninstall and reinstall Office. I ended up following the steps given in "How to completely remove Office for Mac 2011" at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2398768, which included the advice to save Office User Data on the desktop, so I did.

So I successfully reinstalled Office, but I don't know how to retrieve the User Data. I'm not sure all my emails, contacts and folders are even there - that is, there's a folder called Contacts, and some others that don't indicate whether they have my folders and emails or not. Dragging doesn't work - the folder just bounces back. I can't import because, though the folders show up on the Import window, they're never activated to allow import. I click on Import, then Outlook Data File>Outlook for Mac>Microsoft User Data>Office 2011 Identities>Main Identity>Data Records>Contacts>OT>OB>OM>OK - and there the folders end without ever having been activated for import. After the folder OK, there's a file (I guess) called x01_69.ok.14Contact, but it's inactive so I can't select and import it - whatever it is. The same goes for all the other folders - just this enfilade of folders until the abrupt end at a mysterious and inactive file name.

Obviously I'm doing something wrong or not doing something I'm supposed to do, but I'm clueless. Can somebody clue me in? Thanks.