Importing ACT! 6.

0 for Windows Into Now Contact

Updated March 2003 This document provides detailed, easy-to-follow instructions on how to migrate existing contacts from ACT! 6.0 for Windows to Now Contact. You will need to use a Mac OS X compatible version of Microsoft Excel for this process. If you use any other version of ACT! for Windows and wish transfer your data to Now Contact, you may find this document useful as a starting point for doing the conversion. Many of the features in different versions of ACT! For Windows will be similar, if not the same. IMPORTANT: If you have already created a contact file or files in Now Contact, make backups of those files before importing new data. In ACT! 6.0 for Windows 1. 2. 3. Go under the File menu to Data Exchange and choose Export From the File type option, select Text Delimited. From the File name and location option, select the location where youd like to save the exported contact data. Name it ACT! Export.txt. Be sure you remember where this is because you will need to go there to get your file in order to move it to the Macintosh to which youre migrating the data. Click Next Under the heading, What kind of records do you want to export? choose Contact records only. Click the Options button to view additional export options. Choose Tab for field separator and put a check next to Yes, export field names. Click OK. Then click Next Choose which contact records you wish to export (Current record, Current lookup or All records). Click Finish. A progress bar will appear briefly. When it finishes, you have exported your contacts to text. Exit ACT! 6.0 for Windows. Locate the ACT! Export.txt file that you exported and move it to the Macintosh via floppy, zip, CD, network volume, email, etc.).

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In Excel 1. 2. 3. 4. Open the ACT! Export.txt file you saved earlier. If a window titled, Text Import Wizard Step 1 of 3 opens, click Finish. If this window does not open, move on to step 3. Delete any columns of data that you do not need (there may be many ACT! has a plethora of fields). You need to delete at least 15. The columns should go no further than BK. When finished, scroll as far to the right as possible before row 1 runs out of field names (By default, the last column is BZ and is called E-mail

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System, but when youre done deleting columns of data that you dont need, it will probably be further to the left and might be a different field if you delete the E-mail System column in the preceding step). Once you have found the last field name in Row 1, highlight the next cell to the right. Type an X into that cell and hit return. For example, if the last cell with data in it in Row 1 is under the BK column and has a value of Birth Date, you will put your cursor under the BL column in the cell directly to the right of the one with Birth Date in it, type an X and hit return on your keyboard. Highlight the cell you just put the X in. For example, the cell at Row 1, Column BL. Press Command C, or Copy from the Edit menu. Highlight all cells under the cell with the X in it for that column down the whole spreadsheet until you reach the last row of data. For example, if your X is in the BL column, Row 1, and you have 2001 rows of contacts (including Row 1), you will be highlighting column BL from Row 2 all the way to Row 2001. Hit Command V, or Paste from the Edit menu. The entire column should now have X in it from the first contact to the last. Save the file and close it.

NOTE: For those of you who want to know why you just had to do this Each column represents a field for each contact. We have to delete the 15 columns of data because Now Contact has a limit of 64 fields per contact that it can import. By default, ACT! 6.0 exports 78 fields per record. The X is being used as a place holder to force Excel to write a consistent number of tabs per record. If theyre not consistent, the import will fail. Then, in Now Contact 10. Either make a new contact file (File to New choose Contact File, hit OK, give it a meaningful name and save it somewhere youll remember it like the Desktop), or open the contact file you want to import the ACT! data into (If its your primary file, it will have opened when you launched Now Contact, but if its a different one, simply go under File to Open, navigate to where the file is and open it). 11. Under the File menu, choose Import 12. Select the ACT! Export.txt file that you just edited in Excel. Hit Open. 13. In the Import Setup Window, Select New from the buttons in the lower right hand corner. Name it ACT! 6.0 and press Save. 14. Going from top to bottom, match the fields on the right with the fields on the left. Make sure to go from top to bottom here, otherwise the shifting of fields on the right may become frustrating. Some fields may not have an obvious match. Use your best judgment as to where youd like the data to go. When finished, select Import at the bottom. 15. Hit Cancel when prompted to find duplicates.

You have now put your information into Now Contact and youre ready to go!