Issues with accessing Outlook Contact Picture with VBA

[George Herrick]

I have a problem that I am hoping someone can advise me on (or at least point me in the right direction to find an answer). I have created an Access 2013 database that has as one of its functions the ability to update Outlook Contacts. The database actually ended up being quite complex, but I thought this component would be fairly straight forward since there are built-in functions to import and export Outlook contact information. The command SaveAsOutlookContact didn’t work very reliably, though. The Street Address and the Notes fields didn’t consistently save to the contact. I ended up writing my own procedure which works fine and reliably. Here is the code segment…

Const olContactItem = 2
Dim olApp As Object

Set olApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set olContact = olApp.CreateItem(olContactItem)
With olContact
  .FirstName = Nz([First Name])
  .LastName = Nz([Last Name])
  .JobTitle = Nz([Job Title])
  .CompanyName = Nz([Company])
  .BusinessAddressStreet = Nz([Address])
  .BusinessAddressCity = Nz([City])
  .BusinessAddressState = Nz([State/Province])
  .BusinessAddressCountry = Nz([Country/Region])
  .BusinessAddressPostalCode = Nz([ZIP/Postal Code])
  .BusinessTelephoneNumber = Nz([Business Phone])
  .BusinessFaxNumber = Nz([Fax Number])
  .Email1Address = Nz([E-Mail Address])
  .MobileTelephoneNumber = Nz([Mobile Phone])
  .Birthday = Nz([Birthdate])
  .ReferredBy = Nz([Referred By])
  .Spouse = Nz([Spouse Name])
  .Body = Nz([Notes])
  .Display  ' or  .Save to save directly without popup.
End With
Set olApp = Nothing
Set olContact = Nothing

But… I cannot figure out a way to include the contact picture. I think I have googled just about everything there is to google and have browsed through countless user forums (which is how I came across this site). Is there a way to include the contact picture? Using my existing code, or code you can suggest, or with the built-in functions? Basically, I need a reliable way to import an Outlook contact (complete with picture) into Access and a reliable way to save that contact information back out to Outlook and not lose any information.
Also, I have come across a problem in Outlook 2013 that causes duplicate contacts. First, I thought it was my VBA code. But I then created a contact manually and then created it again. Outlook prompted me that the contact already existed and asked if I wanted to update the existing contact or create a new one. Even when I selected update, it still always creates a new contact. This appears only to happen in 2013 with an Outlook.com account configured as an EAS account.
The operating systems I am using are Windows 7 Pro (32 and 64 –bit versions) and Windows 8.1 (64-bit version). My office suites are Office Pro Plus 2013 (with SP1) and Office 365. The email account I am using is an Outlook.com account setup as an EAS account.
Any help or advice anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Michael Bauer]

So much text for a simple question...
You need to save the picture as a file, then add this one:
.AddPicture Filename

 

[George Herrick]

So much text for a simple question...
You need to save the picture as a file, then add this one:
.AddPicture Filename

Thank you for your reply, but I am not sure how to implement that. Let me give you a little more information. My database contains information about people. One of its features is to create Outlook contacts from its records (and conversely add outlook contact information to an existing record or as a creation point of a new record). Each record in the database has a picture of the person associated with it (which is an attachment field). This is the picture that I would like to include when I save the information as an Outlook contact. I would also like it have this picture added/updated when the information is bought in from Outlook. Again, thanks for any information or advice.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

As far as I know, you'll need to save the image from access to the file system then insert it into the contact. You can't send it over directly from access.

 

[Michael Bauer]

Exactly, it must be saved as a file because with the Outlook object model you cannot directly read it from the db.

With the Redemption library it could be possible, see its RDOAttachment object, which supports three methods for directly creating attachments, that is without havin it to save as a file first. The methods are AsArray, AsStream, and AsText. More details here.