2 Ways to Auto Apply a Custom Business Card Style to New Contacts in Outlook

If you dislike the default business card style for contacts in Outlook, you can utilize the two means introduced in this article. Both of them will auto apply your custom business card style to all new contacts.

Many users would like to apply a custom business card style to all their contacts in Outlook. In comparison to modifying business cards manually, a method which can auto use a custom business card style to all new contacts is preferred. Hence, here we will share you 2 methods. You can choose either to your liking.

Method 1: Apply a Custom Form to Contacts Folder

1. First of all, access “Contacts” area.
2. Then, create a new contact by hitting “New Contact” button.
3. In the opened Contact window, leave all fields empty.
4. Just design the business card, for which you can refer to my previous article – “How to Design Your Favorite Business Card in Outlook”.
5. After customizing a business card style, you can switch to “Developer” tab.
6. Under this tab, hit “Publish” > “Publish Form As”.
7. Next, in the popup dialog box, specify a name for this form, such as “Custom BC”.
8. Subsequently, select a “Contacts” folder and right click on it.
9. From its context menu, choose “Properties”.
10. Later, in the new dialog box, select the “Custom BC” from the drop down list of “When posting to this folder, use:”
11. Finally click “OK” to save the changes.
12. From now on, the new contact’s business card will auto display in the custom style.

Method 2: Apply Custom Business Card Style to New Contacts via VBA

1. In the first place, you need to create a new model contact, called as “Custom BC”.
2. Then design this contact’s business card to your liking.
3. Next, in the Outlook main window, press “Alt + F11” key buttons.
4. Then, in the subsequent “Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications” window, open the “ThisOutlookSession” project.
5. After that, copy the following VBA code into this project.

Public WithEvents objContacts As Outlook.Items

Private Sub Application_Startup()
    Set objContacts = Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts).Items
End Sub

Private Sub objContacts_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
    Dim objNewContact As Outlook.ContactItem
    Dim objModelContact As Outlook.ContactItem
    Dim strModelXML As String
 
    If Item.Class = olContact Then
       Set objNewContact = Item
 
       'Get the model contact's business card style
       Set objModelContact = objContacts.Find("[FullName] = Custom BC")
       strModelXML = objModelContact.BusinessCardLayoutXml
 
       'Apply the model style to new contact
       With objNewContact
            .BusinessCardLayoutXml = strModelXML
            .AddBusinessCardLogoPicture ("C:\image\logo.gif")
            .Save
       End With
    End If
End Sub

6. Then, save the code and exit the current window.
7. Eventually, restart your Outlook to activate the new macro.
8. Since then, all new contacts’ business cards will be in the same style as the model one.

Recover Outlook from Unexpected Crash

Outlook can crash now and then. As a rule, if your Outlook file is compromised at that point, Outlook recovery will be the next step. In this case, it must be the best case if you have kept a consistent and up-to-date data backup. If not, you still can employ the inbuilt tool to try fixing the file. However, provided that both fail, you have no choice but to use a well-proven tool, like DataNumen Outlook Repair.

Author Introduction:

Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including corrupt sql and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com