How to Back Up Outlook Custom Forms
One item that very often gets over-looked is having a current backup for any custom form that is in use. Perhaps, this should be better stated as “not only having a current backup but remembering where it is located”.
There can be any number of reasons why you may need to re-publish a custom form such as:
- changing your default PST file
- creating a new contact folder to copy info from an old folder
- something has become corrupt
Once a need/problem arises involving a custom form and it needs to be re-published, your only option is likely to be completely re-creating the form from scratch which, depending on a form’s complexity, can be a very time-consuming task.
The simplest and quickest way to create a backup of any custom form currently assigned as the default for a given contact folder is as follows:
- Open a <NEW> blank contact
- From Outlook’s menu bar – File –> SaveAs
- Select the destination location where the form will be saved to the desired location
- Change the file format to <.oft>
- Click Save
You now have a current backup of the custom form in use. The reason it is important to do this by opening a NEW contact is to ensure that all fields are either blank or set to whatever defaults apply to any of the given fields contained in the form. Opening an existing contact will result with the information for that contact being saved as part of the form template which will appear each time you try and create a new contact.
There are other ways to save a custom form but the reason that this is suggested as the preferred method is that it guarantees that it reflects the custom form actually in use and not one that may be published to a form library under the same name but is not the one actually in use. See Custom Forms – Things to avoid
There is a problem related to saving custom forms in Outlook ‘2013 as an .oft file when one or more changes have been made to the first page of the contact form. The only option in this situation is to save (backup) the form as a <.FDM> file via the Custom Forms manager accessible via
File –> Options –> Advanced –> Developers –> click on the Custom Forms button
The above will require that the <Developers> option has been enabled which is done via
File –> Options –> Customize Ribbon –> check the box for <Developers>
Category: Outlook - How To
