I just want to send this out there while it's fresh in my mind in case it can help anyone else. I'm in OS 10.6.8. Like so many others, I've had nothing but trouble with Outlook 2011, including not being able to sync contacts, calendars, etc, OR syncs that
scaterred the data so wild and crazy as to be useless, forced to restore to pre-sync.
Following various how-tos at more than one Mac or Office forum, still unable to sync. Tried various import/export scenarios--file types just not swappable. Dumped Application Support Sync and Microsoft files as directed, which after Restart did fill in
the totally blank Sync Services pref in Outlook, but setting contacts to sync w Add Book still didn't work. In other threads tried various Sync Services instructions, finally resetting at the Terminal level. All no-go. It's now four hours later...
In desperation I again exported contacts from Outlook, choosing the .txt format (tab-delimited text file). I know Address Book can't read this, so I right-clicked the .txt file to Open with..Excel. When the Excel doc opened I clearly saw a few anomalies,
but mostly it looked more or less correct--Last Names in Last Name column, etc. From inside Excel, I used Save As... and chose as the format type: Windows Comma Separated (.csv), which created a second file as the csv file type I know Address Book can read. Then I imported from Address Book.
And it worked. I will have to do some manual cleanup--deleting some totally blank cards and fixing some cards where data found its way to a wrong field, but it's far better than reentering hundreds of contacts one by one.
Before doing this I backed up my Library>Application Support>Microsoft and SyncServices files and Documents>Microsft User Files, which I'd advise anybody do when troubleshooting anything.
Hope this might help somebody.
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