Tip 513: Move Data to Other Fields

A user asks:

I'd like to take all the data listed under Home Phone and move it to Primary Phone. Or maybe just rename the Home Phone column as Phone, but that doesn't appear to be possible. I don't see any way to select the entire Home Phone column and copy/paste it to the Primary Phone column.

Moving data to another field

You won’t be able to change every field in one move but you can enable in-cell editing and can then copy and paste data between individual fields. It's under Other settings in the Customize View dialog.

You can use VBA to move phone numbers to another phone field. See Bulk Move Phone Numbers to a Different Phone Field to get the code and instructions.

Renaming fields

You can rename the column in a view but not on the contact form. Right click on the row of field names and choose format columns, select the field that needs renamed. This method is not a permanent change to the fields though – it just changes the name you see in the current view. If you want the data moved to a new field, you can do one record at a time or export to Excel and make the changes to the row names and import, or use VBA.

Published June 5, 2008. Last updated on April 20, 2012.