Import Addresses into Netscape Address Book
May 2003

If you want to import a list of e-mail addresses into the address book within Netscape Messenger, then you should have those addresses in either an Excel spreadsheet or a TAB-delimited text file.  It is wise to start with a spreadsheet (rather than the TAB-delimited text file) because it is so much easier to edit the addresses in a spreadsheet environment.  (A TAB-delimited text file is a text file in which each line constitutes a single set of information; e.g., e-mail address, the person's first name, and the last name so that each item within a line is separated from the next by a TAB character.)  An Excel spreadsheet can be easily saved as a TAB-delimited text file.

1. Build a spreadsheet containing the needed information.  Insert the e-mail addresses as well as the first and last names of the addressees into a spreadsheet.  (Netscape Messenger can import more than three columns as long as the imported file is a TAB-delimited text file.  Also the first row can have titles to remind you of the significance of the data beneath them.  Messenger can be told to ignore the first few rows during the importing process.)  For each row of the spreadsheet, be sure that the e-mail address is in the first column, the person's first name in the second column, and the last name is in the third column.  If the columns of data are not in the "e-mail, last name, first name" order, it is easy to copy-and-paste them into that order.  Any blank columns can then be easily removed.

2. Save the spreadsheet as a TAB-delimited file.  Click File and then Save As.  Change the "Save as type" from "Excel spreadsheet" to "Text (Tab delimited)", establish the destination and click Save.

3. Import the TAB-delimited text file into the Netscape Messenger Address Book.  In Netscape Messenger, click Communicator, Address Book, File, and then Import.  In the resulting list of sources of address book information, click "Text file (address book)" and then click Next.  Click the Browse button, change the "File of Type" item to "Text files" (or "All files") and locate the TAB-delimited text file that was created in the previous step.  When you return to the Address Book Import window be sure the "File format" is set to "Tab delimited". 

Just above the lower section of the Import window, you can tell Messenger to ignore the first few lines of the input file (e.g., to ignore a row of titles).  The item "Text values from record 1" indicates the beginning of the address information to be imported.   (This "Text-values" item can be modified with the near-by vertical arrow buttons.)  In the lower section of the Import window, the items of the first line of the imported file are listed in a column to the right.  On the left are dropdown lists.  Since the first item is the e-mail address, match it with Email of the corresponding dropdown list.  The second item should be matched with "First name" and the third item with "Last name".  Click the Import button and eventually control returns to the Address Book window.

4. Create a distribution list from the newly imported addresses.  In the Address Book window, click the New List tool (or File > New List).  Relocate, and perhaps resize, the Address Book and the Mailing List windows so that they are visible side by side.  Enter the name of the new list in the "List Name" slot.  Then drag the desired addresses from the Address Book window to the first empty line of the Mailing List window--which will have just an address-card icon.  [Highlighting a specific address in the Mailing List window will be removed if the Remove button is then clicked; if no address is highlighted, the first address will be removed when the Remove button is clicked.]  Click OK when done.