Prevent Outlook from adding the country field in Word

by Mary Ann Richardson | Jun 19, 2007 12:00:00 AM

Tags: Mary Ann Richardson, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, desktops, U.S., Microsoft Outlook, Word Processors, Groupware, Office Suites, Software, Enterprise Software, Microsoft Office Suite Word Tips Newsletter

Takeaway: Writing letters in Word should be a breeze; however, Outlook may throw a snag in the process. Mary Ann Richardson walks you through the steps of how to block Outlook from automatically adding the country field to your letters.

When you write letters in Word, Outlook automatically inserts the country that matches your PC's regional settings in the Country/Region field for that record (unless you include a country in the address). Consequently, when you click the Insert Address button in the Envelopes And Labels dialog box and choose Outlook as your Address Book, Word automatically inserts the full address, including whatever is in the Country/Region field. For example, if you are located in the United States, Word will insert United States of America. To prevent Word from automatically entering a country in your letters, follow these steps:

1. Open Outlook.
2. Open Outlook's Contacts folder.
3. Go to View | Arrange By | Current View | By Location.
4. Scroll down until you see the first record with United States of America in the Country/Region column.
5. Delete United States of America from the Country/Region cell of that record.
6. Select all remaining records with United States of America in the Country/Region column.
7. Click the Country/Region cell of one of the selected records and drag it to the empty Country/Region cell created in step 5.

Now when you insert an address using Word's Insert Address button, no country name will appear for the records where the field is blank. When adding new records to your Outlook address book, be sure to delete the country name by clearing the contents of the Country/Region field in the Check Address dialog box for that record.

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