error importing contacts from tab-delimited file

Office 2003 with all available updates.

When trying to use the wizard to import tab-delimited
data into contacts, I receive the following error, which
does not seem to appear anywhere on the Internet:

A file error has occurred in the Tab Separated Values
(Windows) translator while initializing a translator to
build a field map.

Outlook was unable to retrieve the data from the
file "pathname\filename.txt". Verify that you have the
correct file, that you have permission to open it, and
that it is not open in another program.

Same result if I choose "tab-delimited file (DOS)".

Of course I have the correct path, because I chose it
with the GUI. I have permission to open it. I can open it
easily with Notepad. It's not open in another program.
It's a scrubbed printable ASCII file aside from the tabs.
I have no trouble importing it into Palm Desktop, for
example.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Going on the basis that there is nothing wrong with your translator files in
Outlook then the quickest way to test this would be to open it up in Excel
and then either import it as an Excel file or alternatively re-save it as a
CSV file and import that. If there's nothing wrong with the file - it should
open up correctly. Similarly you could try importing the file into MS Access
and see if MS Access generates an error report of any kind during the import
process.

If the error continues to occur ("A file error..........to build a field
map") - then there is something in the first row of the file that is causing
the issue (is the first row a header record - i.e. first row contains the
field names?) or all the rows don't have the same number of fields etc.
We've never across any problems with Outlook's standard import wizard using
a properly structured file. What we have run across are buried illegal
characters that don't show-up anywhere until the file is analyzed at the
byte level in hexidecimal format.

Karl

--
__________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0
"Power contact importers for MS Outlook '2000/2003"
http://www.contactgenie.com


"Rob" wrote in message
...
Office 2003 with all available updates.

When trying to use the wizard to import tab-delimited
data into contacts, I receive the following error, which
does not seem to appear anywhere on the Internet:

A file error has occurred in the Tab Separated Values
(Windows) translator while initializing a translator to
build a field map.

Outlook was unable to retrieve the data from the
file "pathname\filename.txt". Verify that you have the
correct file, that you have permission to open it, and
that it is not open in another program.

Same result if I choose "tab-delimited file (DOS)".

Of course I have the correct path, because I chose it
with the GUI. I have permission to open it. I can open it
easily with Notepad. It's not open in another program.
It's a scrubbed printable ASCII file aside from the tabs.
I have no trouble importing it into Palm Desktop, for
example.

Any ideas?

Thanks.