Frequently Asked Questions
General Questions
Troubleshooting
Licensing and Registration
How many contacts can I put in the progam?
Theoretically, the maximum size of the database file can be up to 140 TB, but the developer has no hardware to test that. Although you probably may start experiencing some performance problems long before you reach this limit - say, if you collect close to ~100,000 records. However it should be large enough for any practical use.
How many contact groups can I create? Is there any limit?
There is no limit, you can create as many groups as you want. Group name is limited by 20 characters.
How many columns can I display in the table?
As many as your screen allows when the program window is maximized. But use common sense and display only the most important columns. The fewer the better: the table will otherwise look cluttered. Search looks for the data in all the columns, even in those that are not visible, so there is no need to view too many columns. You will see all the highlighted matches in the Contact Details.
How can I transfer data from an older version of E-Z Contact Book?
If you have E-Z Contact Book database file from the versions 3.0 and newer (contacts.db), they can be imported (restored) directly from the database file (Database > Restore).
E-Z Contact Book database files from the versions 2.0 - 2.8 (contacts.fdb) have different format which is no longer supported.
Can I create groups in a hierarchical order?
No, groups can only be on one level. Having hierarchical group structure would unnecessary overcomplicate export/import functionality.
But there is an alternative way to group contacts together using tags. Please see Working with tags for more details.
Is there a possibility to put a contact in more than one group?
No, a contact may only belong to one group.
But you can assign as many tags as you want to a contact, and use tags as alternative to groups. Please see Working with tags for more details.
How can I backup my data, or copy from one computer to another?
The easiest way to backup data is to save database file (Database > Backup). The file name contains date stamp, so it is easy to find when the backup was made. And it is as easy to restore old data back, or load in another computer - see User Guide section on how to Restore database from backup files.
Program automatically performs daily database backup by default, so you can use the most recent auto-backup file as a copy to transfer to another computer.
But the best method to copy contacts from one computer to another and keep them up to date is to Sync using Google Contacts - that way eliminates several steps.
Can I share E-Z Contact Book contacts with other users on a local network, or with other users on the same computer?
Yes you can, but not directly. Two methods of sharing contacts are available:
- Database Backup/Restore or Export/Import (requires several steps - export, copying file, import, resolving possible differences)
- Using Sync with Google Contacts - the simplest method (requires some initial setup)
How can I copy and paste contact details?
Use the option Copy to new contact, which is available in the right-click popup menu for a selected contact, or in the contact editor. It will create a new contact, copy all the Personal or Business data, except First and Last name. Group type (Personal or Business) the contact belongs to determines which (Personal or Business) data will be copied. The option is useful when you create multiple contact cards for members of a family, or group of employee of the same company. It was designed to reduce the amount of data entry.
How can I enter spaces or dashes in the phone numbers, or use brackets for area code?
The program by default is set to auto-format all phone numbers, so you don't have to enter any spaces or other punctuation when entering phone numbers - program does it for you. All you have to do is properly set up the format for your phone numbers. See more details on auto-formatting here. Some countries however have irregular formatting of the phone numbers, which is impossible to automate. If that is your case, turn auto-formatting OFF, and you will be able to enter phone numbers in the format you need.
New Contact button and all others are disabled. How can I add a new contact?
That may only happen when you just installed the program but haven't created any contact group yet. At this point, the database is completely empty.
First step is to add at least one new group within the ALL CONTACTS heading, then you will be able to add any number of contacts. All contacts are organized in groups to make it easy to find them.
I am getting an error exporting data to Outlook. How can I resolve it?
You may get the following error when trying to export data to Outlook - "Compatibility error exporting to Outlook ... Unable to find the WAB DLL":
To fix this issue:
- Make sure Outlook is not running.
- Make sure OUTLOOK.EXE process is not still running, even though you closed the application. Open the task manager and end the process OUTLOOK.EXE if it is running.
- Find the file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\OUTLOOK.EXE
- Right click and go to Properties, then Compatibility, then under Compatibility mode check the box "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and choose Windows XP SP2 from the drop down list
- Click Apply
Some of the phone numbers were truncated when I exported data to an Excel file, converted it to a CSV file, then imported to E-Z Contact Book. How can I fix them?
There is a known problem converting from Excel to a comma-delimited format, which is fortunately easy to fix. When you save an Excel spreadsheet to a comma-delimited file and then look at the phone number columns in the last one, you may notice that 12-digits (or longer) numbers look quite unreadable, in an exponential format, even if you make the column wider. For example, the number 112147483641 will look like 1.12147E+11. You can fix phone numbers as follows:
- Look for the phone numbers in the original Excel file that look non-numeric (contain "+" or "E" character)
- Edit Excel file to insert a single quote character before those numbers and save the changes
- Save as a comma-delimited file. Single quote characters will remain
- Import (or re-import) data from the comma-delimited file. Leading single quote characters will be ignored
When I sync with Google, I can see new contacts being added every day
This may happen if your Gmail account is set to automatically add new contacts to the address book from emails.
Please check this link or this, they explain how to change your account setting to stop Gmail from adding contacts.
My computer/hard drive crashed. How can I restore my contacts?
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If you have used Sync with Google Contacts, you have a complete copy of all your contacts in your Google account. Just install E-Z Contact Book on a new or repaired computer. Then login to Google, and click Data > Sync with Google Contacts. It will reinstate all your contacts just in few seconds.
- If you don't use Sync, your luck is if you find the original database file or the backup file(s) on the old computer/hard drive. If this old hard drive is still readable, or files recovered from it by a service technician, search for the file contacts.db. Original database file it is located in the folder %APPDATA%\E-Z Contact Book\. But after the hard drive is restored, this folder may be renamed, in which case you should search the entire C:\ drive.
If you can't find the original database file, search for auto-backup files with the names like CONTACTS_AUTO_BACKUP_*.DB. If you find more than one, pick the one that has the most recent date stamp in the file name.
Once the backup file found, import (restore) as described here.
You can find more detailed instructions on this page.
How can I remove the annoying sound from the popup notification when the program hides into the Windows notification area?
Notification options can be adjusted in Windows 10 for a specific application. To do that for E-Z Contact Book:
- First, make sure E-Z Contact Book is hidden in the notification area (assuming you use option 3 ('Keep program active...') in the General section)
- Open Windows Settings > System > Notification and actions. You should be able to see E-Z Contact Book in the list of programs under 'Get notifications from these senders'.
- Here you can turn Off popup notifications from E-Z Contact Book (this is not recommended because you may get wrong impression that the program is closed while it is just hidden).
- When you click on E-Z Contact Book icon here, you will see more detailed Notifications menu for the program. You can turn option 'Play a sound when a notification arrives', or adjust other options.
How can I transfer a registered license from one computer to another?
You can do that only while E-Z Contact Book is still operational on your old computer. To transfer the license:
- On the old computer, open E-Z Contact Book and click the main menu option Help > About Program
- Right click on the license text area of the About window, then select the option 'Unregister License' from the context menu. You should see a confirmation message.
This will deactivate the license on this computer/operating system and decrease the number of your activations by one.
- Now you can register the license with the same license key on your new computer.
I am planning to reinstall the operating system. Will it void my registered license?
- NO, if you unregister your license before formatting the hard drive. After your operating system is installed, you can re-register the license with the same license key (reuse the same activation). Please see the previous answer on how to transfer the license.
- YES, if you have already formatted or replaced the hard drive without prior deactivation of your license. License information that was on the hard drive will be lost and cannot be recovered when you format the drive.
How can I find the number of remaining activations for my license?
- Open Help > About Program in E-Z Contact Book
- Right click on the license text area of the About window, then select the option 'Get Registation Information' from the context menu.