Filed under: Internet, Windows, Web services, Browser Tips, VoIP
Making a phone list for SkypeOut calls
by Brad Linder Dec 7th 2006 at 3:00PM
I got rid of my land line recently. I've found that a cell phone and Skype suits most of my daily needs.But one of the things I'd hoped to do was export my 1000+ contacts in Outlook to Skype to make SkypeOut calls easily. The problem is that Skype doesn't have an easy way to import SkypeOut contacts. You can scan Outlook for a list of people who may have Skype accounts on their PC, but Skype won't import their telephone numbers.
Completely by accident I discovered a workaround today. Someone sent an organizational telephone list to my Gmail account today. Rather than download the word document, I opened it as an HTML document in Firefox. And lo and behold, I was presented with a long list of phone numbers, each with a button next to them for quick dialing via SkypeOut.
Here's how it works. Skype 3.0 beta for Windows includes a nifty new feature that will scan web pages in Internet Explorer or Firefox, looking for phone numbers. If you're looking up a restaurant, for example, Skype will see the phone number on the page and let you click an icon in your web browser to dial and make reservations.
Well, it also happens to work if you happen to get a phone number in your email, or if you open an excel spreadsheet in an online spreadsheet program on the web. So if you want to export your contacts from Outlook to a spreadsheet and upload it to a web service like Google Documents, you'll have 1-click access to all of your contacts. In practice, this didn't work too well for me, as my exported contacts took up a huge amount of space and look unwieldy in spreadsheet form.
But you can create your own list of quick-click SkypeOut contacts just by creating an HTML document with all of your contacts and creating a bookmark in your web browser.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Guillermo said 4:56PM on 12-07-2006
It doesn't even have to be HTML. A regular .txt with a list of numbers works just as well.
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Huw Leslie said 5:07PM on 12-07-2006
Why not just use the Skylook toolbar for Outlook? That way you can make your calls using skype from within outlook, without any workarounds necessary.
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Ken said 7:32AM on 12-08-2006
Yeah, I use the Skype Toolbar for Outlook. Works great!
http://www.skype.com/download/skypeemailtoolbar/
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Brad Linder said 7:36AM on 12-08-2006
Thanks for the tip. As a relative newcomer to Skype I hadn't found that yet. It does work great, but it's not quite a one-click solution. I still think the html lists work well for things like organizational phone lists.
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Jon said 7:36AM on 12-08-2006
Good this thing to use the panel of tools... Thanks you have very much helped me!
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Peter Kalmstrm said 3:01PM on 12-08-2006
I am so glad you found and liked the functionality :-)
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Neel said 4:22PM on 12-08-2006
In Skype 3.0 Beta , you can directly access Outlook from the contact list. Goto, View->View Outlook Contacts and it will load all your Outlook contacts in the Skype contact list.
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Brad Linder said 4:27PM on 12-08-2006
Okay, that's it Neel wins. That is the most useful thing anyone's shown me all week.
Thanks Neel.
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Patrick said 8:20AM on 12-15-2006
I was excited when I found that I could make SkypeOut calls just by clicking on phone numbers converted into links on my browser. However, for the last few days, somehow mysteriously no phone number converts into a SkypeOut link anymore .... any thoughts?
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Mikhail said 3:41PM on 12-17-2006
Is there a way to link a phone number an URL that would be recognized by older version of skype?
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Chris Harpin said 12:17PM on 1-09-2007
Got a feeling that I can not see the wood for the trees!
How do I stop Skype from highlighting phone numbers? Checked all settings but to no avail.
I want sites to be rendered as they were created as I have no use for the button.
Help!!!
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