Entourage 2004: Best way to extract some info from olderdatabase on another drive?

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Would Entourage 2004--while still booted into my hard drive--be able to open
an older database in a cloned volume on another hard drive, go into a Task
or Note, and copy information?

If so, are any steps required to prevent damage to the newer database or to
whatever Library files Entourage 2004 uses for its path to the database?

Please tell me there is an easier and less time consuming way to retrieve
backed up database info than what I describe below:

After accidentally deleting important information in the text of an
Entourage Task, I took a lot of time booting into my secondary hard drive's
older OS X volume, launching Entourage, copying the data to a Word file,
saving the Word file to my primary hard drive, booting back into that hard
drive, etc.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Barry Wainwright]

Would Entourage 2004--while still booted into my hard drive--be able to open
an older database in a cloned volume on another hard drive, go into a Task
or Note, and copy information?

If so, are any steps required to prevent damage to the newer database or to
whatever Library files Entourage 2004 uses for its path to the database?

Please tell me there is an easier and less time consuming way to retrieve
backed up database info than what I describe below:

After accidentally deleting important information in the text of an
Entourage Task, I took a lot of time booting into my secondary hard drive's
older OS X volume, launching Entourage, copying the data to a Word file,
saving the Word file to my primary hard drive, booting back into that hard
drive, etc.

Did you try the Import command in the file menu? Select 'from a programme'
in the first box, then follow the instructions.

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Did you try the Import command in the file menu? Select 'from a programme'
in the first box, then follow the instructions.

Thanks for the suggestion Barry. It was thoughtful of you, but I ran into
the barrier of Entourage 2004's capability in importing Entourage 2004 data
from another drive.

Here's what I ran into with "Import.":

The Import from program options only list Entourage X and Entourage 2001,
not Entourage 2004. And Entourage 2004 doesn't seem able to import from
an Entourage 2004 Main Identity. (The single Task I had to access is in an
older clone of my Entourage 2004 MUD, Main Identity, Database. Trying to
fool the program by using the Entourage X option does not work: when you
get to the Entourage 2004 Main Identity on the other drive, the running of
the option gives you two error statements on why the import can't be done:
error -61 and error 2.

I'm curious, though: if it were able to import from an Entourage 2004 Main
Identity, would one have to import all Tasks, for example, or could one be
selective? If all Tasks, would the imported ones come over in a separate
file that you could open, say similar to a Word document, for extracting a
single Task?

Finally, please offer another suggested course of action as a alternative to
the tedious one I described in the last paragraph of my post.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Thanks for the suggestion Barry. It was thoughtful of you, but I ran into
the barrier of Entourage 2004's capability in importing Entourage 2004 data
from another drive.

Here's what I ran into with "Import.":

The Import from program options only list Entourage X and Entourage 2001,
not Entourage 2004. And Entourage 2004 doesn't seem able to import from
an Entourage 2004 Main Identity. (The single Task I had to access is in an
older clone of my Entourage 2004 MUD, Main Identity, Database. Trying to
fool the program by using the Entourage X option does not work: when you
get to the Entourage 2004 Main Identity on the other drive, the running of
the option gives you two error statements on why the import can't be done:
error -61 and error 2.

I'm curious, though: if it were able to import from an Entourage 2004 Main
Identity, would one have to import all Tasks, for example, or could one be
selective? If all Tasks, would the imported ones come over in a separate
file that you could open, say similar to a Word document, for extracting a
single Task?

Finally, please offer another suggested course of action as a alternative to
the tedious one I described in the last paragraph of my post.

You can use my Export-Import Entourage X scripts to do it. Run Tasks Export
from X in the old database, then Tasks Import into X in the new database.
Make good use of the various options in the Export script to export just the
subset you need. If the subset isn't _too_ large, then it's feasible to use
the Check for Duplicates option in the Import script. Checking for
Duplicates can be very slow with large samples and also with a large set of
existing data in the Import database, so if you know you aren't importing
any duplicates it's much faster to skip checking for duplicates if you can.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Dave Cortright]

The Import from program options only list Entourage X and Entourage 2001,
not Entourage 2004.

To move data from one version of Entourage 2004 to another, first export as
an Entourage archive, then import this archive into the other database.

 

[Barry Wainwright]

Thanks for the suggestion Barry. It was thoughtful of you, but I ran into
the barrier of Entourage 2004's capability in importing Entourage 2004 data
from another drive.

OK, when you said 'an older database' I assumed you meant an older version.