01-07-2010 05:03 PM - edited 01-08-2010 10:38 AM
I recently transferred my Nokia E65 address book to my new Blackberry Tour 9630 through Intellisync. It was an arduous process. Transferring via Outlook or Google may work - but you can end up with missing fields - corrupted data, etc; many don't want to install those apps just to use that function.
If you can get your contacts from your originating phone into a CSV file, you can manipulate them in a spreadsheet. Then you can use the ASCII importer to get them into the BB. Here are the tricks:
1) The CSV file format must include both a comma and a delimiter (usually a quote mark) around each field unconditionally. MS Excel 2002 will not write a CSV file this way. I was able to use Open Office Calc spreadsheet program, which writes the format flavor Intellisync needs. Other CSV editors may work too.
2) The ASCII Importer will ignore a CSV file with a trailing CR/LF sequence. To fix, use a free hex file editor, like Frhed, to remove the last two bytes (x0D, x0F) before you import .
So here is the procedure:
1) Create a dummy contact entry in your BB with all the fields used and export it to a CSV file on your PC. This will give you a reference file with the field names your BB may use. Most of these names are also in the ASCII importer help file, but the best reference is your BB itself.
2) Note some fields, even though they exist, do not transfer. My User Defined 1-4 fields exist on my BB and in the reference file, but do not export in nor out. Address3, Mobile Phone 2, and Home Fax all exist in the ref file, but not on the BB. To figure out what transfers and what doesn't for your BB, create a fully populated test entry on both device and PC. syncronize each, and look carefully at what transfers.
3) Load the originating phone CSV file into the spreadsheet on another tab. Compare the field names from your originating phone to your BB field names. In my case, my Nokia had Spanish names and my BB English...
You'll need to figure out how to map each of your originating field names to a BB column.
4) Carefully replace the data columns of the CSV reference file you pulled from the BB, with the data from your original handset, making sure you conserve the BB field headers. You may have to consolidate data from multiple columns on your original phone data into one column on your BB data. Be careful not to put data in a column that doesn't transfer, like "Mobile Phone 2".
5) Save the edited CSV file from Open Office or other editor, then open it with the hex editor and delete the last CR/LF (x0D, x0A) bytes, then save again. The file is now ready to import into your BB.
6) Configure your synchronization settings to use your newly created file and replace the contact data in your BB
Final note: be careful about extraneous quote marks or other characters in your field data that can corrupt the import process.
01-07-2010 05:36 PM
Excellent post, thanks for the detailed walk-through.
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01-07-2010 05:51 PM
Great job!
Hope you can make some more solutions like this again.
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07-23-2012 12:06 AM