Brian, LaMancha:

I can't speak for the OP, but this is an interesting issue that I have
pondered on more than one occasion - without any resolution. So if I
may, here are some of the reasons for wanting the ability to store,
view, and print a spouse's surname when it is different from the
contact's:

When I need to call a contact on the phone, I want to be able to see
all information relating to that contact, including the spouse's full
name if different from contact's. If during the conversation I need
to refer to the contact's spouse, it is a good thing to know the
spouse's name! And "viewing" this information also applies to looking
at it on a printed report or on a Pocket PC or cell phone - assuming I
use my Outlook contacts to populate those things.

When creating a mail merge for a mailing to my contacts, I do NOT want
an address to read "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" if the surnames are
actually "Mr. John Smith and Mrs. Jane Jones-Smith", or any other
surname that is different from the contact.

Of course just knowing all of this information off the top of my head
is by far the best and most personal way. But I'm afraid that both
the growth of my contacts database to a very large total, along with
this extremely annoying problem of just not being able to remember a
fraction of the stuff that I once could, makes doing it all from
memory a broken dream!

I don't know that there is a good answer for this. Using the Detailed
Information field to keep the spouse's surname, if different, used to
be a solution for the Pocket PC, but the complete botching of
Activesync 4.x along with Windows Mobile 5 has killed that fix;
Contact notes are no longer able to sync to a handheld device.

I fear I would have to use a third-party solution for this issue -
like we all do for many features and functions, as it is unlikely that
Outlook will ever be made to accomodate anything but the most
rudimentary contact management.

If you folks know of a better solution, please do post again.

Thanks.

--
Jim McGowan

Jim McGowan wrote:

When I need to call a contact on the phone, I want to be able to see
all information relating to that contact, including the spouse's full
name if different from contact's. If during the conversation I need
to refer to the contact's spouse, it is a good thing to know the
spouse's name! And "viewing" this information also applies to looking
at it on a printed report or on a Pocket PC or cell phone - assuming I
use my Outlook contacts to populate those things.

When creating a mail merge for a mailing to my contacts, I do NOT want
an address to read "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" if the surnames are
actually "Mr. John Smith and Mrs. Jane Jones-Smith", or any other
surname that is different from the contact.

Using two separate contacts and assigning them to a single category comes as
close as anything, but as currently designed, I don't think Outlook handles
this as well as some products.
--
Brian Tillman

On Thu, 11 May 2006 10:44:20 -0400, "Brian Tillman"
wrote:


Using two separate contacts and assigning them to a single category comes as
close as anything, but as currently designed, I don't think Outlook handles
this as well as some products.

Thanks Brian.

I have a feeling that you're right. It would be nice, though, and not
very difficult to remedy this, if Outlook used a database structure
similar to MSSQL. Pity.

Thanks again!

--
Jim McGowan