[tkessler2]

I recently transferred my Nokia E65 address book to my new Blackberry Tour 9630 through Intellisync. I got it done, but it was an arduous process. Transferring via Outlook or Google may work - but you can end up with missing fields - corrupted data, etc and 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 then manipulate them in a spreadsheet. Then you can use the ASCII importer to get them cleanly and completely into the BB. Here are the tricks:

1) The CSV file format must include both a comma and a delimiter 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 flavor of the format Intellisync needs. Other CSV editors may work too.

2) The ASCII Importer will ignore a CSV file with a trailing CR/LF sequence at the end of the file. Unfortunately Open Office writes this way. To fix, download and install a free hex file editor, like Frhed, to remove the last two bytes (x0D, x0F) before you import it.

So here is the procedure:

1) Create a dummy contact entry in your blackberry 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 Blackberry may use. Most of these names are also in the Intellisync 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 Blackberry and in the reference file, but do not export out nor in. 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 and not.

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 has 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 reference CSV file you pulled from the BB, with the data from your original handset, making sure you conserve the correct BB field headers. You may have to consolidate data from multiple columns on your original phone date 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) byte, and 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.

[dankarlinski]

Wirelessly posted (White and Nerdy)

Or you can use google sync and do it almost instantly...