Man you are so unlucky I am sorry to say. I will keep looking and let you know if I get to something

Thanks for the link, but unfortunately it didn’t work, since once I tried to install the file on the phone it just says application error .

Ohh, and make sure you have a backup

If you try it, let me know if it works

As for me, I give up on trying to make it work with Arabic contacts . No matter what the workaround I tried, whenever I make any change to the original CSV file, I can’t import it back because the size/format change and the PC suite refuses to take it back.

Am going crazy :S

For running the JAR file, right-click the JAR file and select Open With. Browse to Program Files/Java/.. and select latest Java version folder, and the go to bin, select java file. In my case, it’s something like this:

C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin\java.exe

Ideal case is, Installing latest Java version should make all JAR files open with Java Program, but it didn’t seem to work with you this way.

Mohammad: Thanks for cheering me up, still no excuse. A good software is one that “Desn’t Make You Think” . The purpose is to make conversion easy, so if it’s not, I should try to help, and learn from your experience as well

Usually, working with outlook is so fluent and easy, except for the UTF-8 on my part . Give it a short, while still holding a backup file of all your contacts just in case. Let me know if you make any progress.

Eidkom mbarak as well

You need not be ashamed of anything my friend, you did your part creating this awesome utility, now it’s up to us to figure out how to use it according to our needs .

I understand the UTF-8 requirement, I just couldnt figure out a way to set it as the character set while exporting to .csv. So what i did as i mentioned above is to export using the Nokia Suite into unicode CSV, open it with Open Office, save it as UTF-8, & then convert the numbers with your utility.

However the names still came out jumbled, so i copied the numbers (which were converted fine) back into the original Unicode csv. This should mean that i can simply import the file back to the phone without it even knowing what hit it, but when i import back i dont get all the new contacts back. Pt no pot errors or anything, it just doesn’t take them back. After that i didnt mess with it more but will try later & report. But the problem for me seems to be with the Nokia suite to import. I may try the address book solution you mentioned & see how it goes, though i never did it so will need to read on that .

3eedkom Mbarak .

1.Open Microsoft Outlook 2003
2.Go to Tools -> Options -> Preferences
3.Click on Contact Options which is under Contacts
4.Check “Show an additional Contacts Index” and then choose Arabic as the “Additional Contacts Index”
5.Try exporting your contacts now and inform me with the results

Hope it works.
Cheers

xTrEmE: The Windows version is really my least favorite, since the licensed installer I have is pretty old, and a new one will cost a lot. So it is so uncompatible. I suggest either the Online Version, or if you are concerned about uploading your contact files, by all means, go to the Java version if you can. Should work on all platforms. You seem to have already done that as I read your knowledge sharing with Mohammad

Mohammad: Your points are absolutely correct. My program will process UTF-8 and not unicode files. Sorry, but this is the way I was able to process Arabic characters only. As for importing back, does the Nokia Suite give errors when you attempt to import? Or simply ignores your importing. Could it be because it’s expecting Unicode for import and not UTF-8? Need to convert it back again?

Another possible way, which is what I did, is to import the converted CSV file not through Nokia Suite, but an Address book. This might get messy I know, sorry.

If you want to send me a portion of the file, you can mask numbers, change names, just so that I have an idea and try to help.

xTrEmE,

I tried your method of exporting to .csv with Nokia PC suite and it worked but it could be the reason you’re getting an error! Because the .csv file that comes out of that cannot be treated with Q8Ba7th’s utility for some reason. I think it comes out with a different character set (Unicode but not UTF-8).

If your contacts are all in English, your problem should have an easy fix. Instead of exporting directly from the Nokia PC suite to csv, simply sync with Outlook, and when you see your contacts are there in outlook, export them from there to csv. The .csv file you get from there should work with the converter utility. From then you can simply import the new csv-8 digits file again to outlook and then again back to your phone by synchronizing.

Now if your contacts are in Arabic, there’s a bit more work to be done, which is what I am messing with right now. I exported using Nokia PC suite like you said, then opened the resulting .csv file using Open Office, saved it as CSV with UTF-8 character set, converted using the utility, opened the new csv file and saw that arabic names are jumbled (not ??, but weird characters), copied the numbers from the new file, pasted them again on the old csv file that came out of the nokia pc suite.

The silly thing is now I don’t know how to import the new csv file back into the phone! It’s the same format but whenever I do import and select the file, the contacts don’t show up for some reason, and the phone picks up old contacts from somewhere else.

So we’re almost there but I don’t know how to solve the last silly part. I will try again with it later but if anybody knows please help .

What’s the error you’re getting? Remember you don’t need to extract the .jar file, simply right click and open it.

Thanks for the reply. I will try your method tomorrow morning. But to be honest there’s no Communication Center on my PC Suite, but it seems to be the same as choosing Contacts from your description.

And your question isn’t stupid . Basically you need to install the Java platform if you don’t have it in your system (Q8Ba7th provided the link above. Check under “Download offline version”, the first selection is for the Java based application of his program, and right next to it there’s another link for the Java platform needed to run his program. The link to that is found on the word “Required JRE 1.6″ in orange).

After you install the Java program, download his .Jar converter program (first link as mentioned), then simply right click the file you downloaded and choose Open With > JRE (the one you installed) and that’s it .

I hope this helps . And again thanks for your reply. I will post here if this actually solves the problem with the arabic contacts not being displayed properly.

Or did you mean exporting to CSV using Microsoft Outlook (or Lotus etc) after synchronizing?

Thanks for the reply. I’m also facing the same problem with my father’s contacts as well. Whenever I export them to CSV the arabic names turn to question marks. I tried many different things, including exporting to excel or even opening/saving-as with Open office which allows you to change the character set, but it didn’t work. I may try to find another work around and will let you know if I find something.

XTremE:

Can you please elaborate on how you exported to CSV using the Nokia Communication Center as you mentioned? I searched for the communication center and the Nokia site said that it has graduated and been integrated into the latest Nokia PC Suite which I have, but didn’t find any option to export contacts to CSV. I would appreciate your help since this may solve the Arabic names issue.

As for your problem, you may want to try the Java based application that Q8Ba7th posted above, it may work better for you (I know it did for me but I use Windows XP, others who used Vista told me the windows one worked for them).

Thanks

I will post you a note if I reach anything

Samer: Sorry to hear that, and sorry for late reply. The program should be handling +965 accordingly, I tried it before so many times. Could you be more specific please so I can help you? Is it +965 Give me a masked version of the number.

please can you assist on this issue
thanks
samer

So how do I make sure that the file I export from the address book program is in UTF-8? I’m using Nokia PC Suite if that’s any help. Didn’t find a way on the suite to export directly to CSV as well.

I’m really not sure why the address book would do that. Can you just check the exported file first.

Could you please elaborate on how it can be made to work with Arabic contacts? I had it working fine with English ones but failed to export to .CSV using UTF-8 character set as you mentioned. I tried “Save AS > Edit Filter > Save as UTF-8 and choose character set” using Open Office but it still didn’t work.

I would appreciate your help on this , and again thanks for a useful application!