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Outlook 2007 form, general page not displaying

I moved a custom Outlook form from 2003 to 2007 and am having a problem getting the General Page, with the standard Outlook contact information, to display. Here's what I have done

Open the form in the form editor. Go to the General page. Click the Page pulldown (in the Design section of the ribbon) and check the "Display This Page" box. I go to save the form and get the following error message

"The File As field for this contact is empty. you may not have entered a name or company. Do you want to save this contact with an empty File As field?" Yes or No

If I choose No, then I can't save the newly altered form. If I choose Yes, then it's as if the changes I made never took place. I go back into edit the form and the General page is in () and is not being displayed.

Any ideas?

David Lee

Hi, SupermanTB.

If this is still an issue, then can you upload a copy of the form so I can have a look?

SupermanTB

ASKER

Same problem. I've attached the form and changed the extension from oft to txt. Any help would be appreciated as this is been a major problem for me.
Problem-Form.txt

David Lee

The solution to this is simpler than it seems. After making changes use save. Use Save As if you want to save the item as an Outlook form template file (i.e. a .oft file) or use Publish to publish the file to a forms library or folder. Outlook appears to be interpreting Save as "save an item based on this form" instead of saving the form definition itself.

SupermanTB

ASKER

To be very specific, I'm going to Tools, forms, design a form. I choose the form and save it as instructed. When I click save on that form, I get the following error message.

The File As field for this contact is empty. You may not have entered a name or company. Do you want to save this contact with an empty File As field? Yes or No

When that happens, I click Yes. After doing so and restarting Outlook, I still don't have the General information in Outlook. When I go back into edit the form, the General tab is still in ().

David Lee

"When I click save on that form, I get the following error message."

If that means that you are clicking Save while in the form editor, then that's the problem.

SupermanTB

ASKER

I'm very green with custom forms. Where do I need to be clicking save if not in the form editor?

David Lee

Using Save As if you want to save it as form template, or using Publish if you want to publish it to a forms library.

SupermanTB

ASKER

Ok, when I publish the form, I don't see any changes. I also tried Publish As to create a new version of the form and I still have the same issue. That General tab is in ().

David Lee

Then I'm stumped. I don't see the same problem when I publish it or use Save As to save it to an .oft file. I can send you back the modified .oft if you want.

SupermanTB

ASKER

that would be fine

David Lee

Here it is. Please don't forget to change the extension from .txt back to .oft.
SupermanTB-1.txt

SupermanTB

ASKER

I think we're making progress. Your form did not have the General in (), which is great. I published the form properly, but I must have forgotten how to associate it with the contacts folder. I have right clicked on the folder and selected properties. I changed the "When posting to this folder, use:" to your form. When I create a new contact entry, your form comes up and everything looks great. However, the existing contacts appear to still be using the old form. How do I change those to use the new form? Thanks.

SupermanTB

ASKER

I think I'm almost there, any word on my last post?

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David Lee

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SupermanTB

ASKER

Sorry about the delay. Been on vacation. Will have a look at it this week