PDA Data Conversion

Information for PDA and smartphone users wishing to convert their data to another format.

Moving from one type of PDA to another can be a painful experience… Just how do you convert your contacts from an ancient Psion database format over to a new Windows Mobile‘s Contacts? Or how do you get your Palm Calendar entries onto a Nokia N95 mobile phone?

On this page, we try to help with some common file conversion tricks.
If the format you are looking for is not listed, or you have an addition to this list, please ask in our PDA forum and we’ll try to help.

Synchronising via your PC

The

easiest way of getting the majority of your data (especially your contacts, agenda

and to-do lists) converted from one PDA format to another, assumes you have access

to a PC running Microsoft Outlook:

Windows Mobile / Pocket

PC
ActiveSync Logo ActiveSync
from Microsoft, is the control centre for data exchange between
the desktop PC and a Windows Mobile / Pocket PC device. It supports synchronisation of Contacts,
Calendar, Tasks and Notes with MS Outlook.
ActiveSync also handles the following:

Document
conversion for Pocket Excel, Pocket Word and Pocket Access
Synchronisation
of Email folders between Outlook and Inbox
Support
for exchange of Avantgo data
Exchange
of Internet favourites (plus cached content)

Palm

OS
Palm

OS solutions for desktop data exchange come in the form of Palm Desktop

and PocketMirror, with options to

exchange data with a dedicated Palm desktop application, or with Microsoft Outlook.

When you perform a HotSync, your Date Book, Address Book, To Do List and Memo

Pad data are exchanged.
Palm Desktop can also do the following:

Expense
and Mail data synchronisation

Nokia

Smartphones
With the Nokia PC Suite, you can share information between
a compatible PC and your phone, install software on the phone, configure
phone settings, and make backups of phone files. You can also synchronise
your calendar, contacts and tasks with Microsoft and Lotus applications,
copy and move images on your PC and phone, and copy contacts and
calendar information from another Nokia mobile phone or a Palm device.
Versions are available for the Nokia 9110, Nokia 9210, Nokia 3650,
Nokia 7610, Nokia 6600 and Nokia 7650.
Nokia Transfer in progress

This can be downloaded from the Nokia website. The software for the 3650 and 7650 supports:

Microsoft
Outlook 97, 98, 2000 and XP
Microsoft
Schedule+
Lotus
Notes 4.5, 4.6, 5.0 and 6.0
Lotus
Organizer 5.0, 6.0, and 97, 97 GS, 4.0 GS and 4.1

For an alternative,
take a look at Oxygen
II for Symbian Phones

Psion

/ EPOC
PsiWin icon PsiWin

is Psion’s PC connectivity product. Supplied free with Psion machines, or available

as a free download from www.mypsionsupport.com,

this package will let you synchronise your Contacts, Agenda and To-do list with

Outlook. It also support Lotus Organizer and Microsoft Schedule+.
PsiWin can

also be used to copy and convert the following data types:

EPOC
Word – To MS Word, Plain text, Rich text (RTF), MS Word, Ami Pro,WordPro, Word

Perfect, MS Works for Windows
EPOC
Sheet – MS Excel, Lotus 123, Quattro Pro, MS Works for Windows
EPOC
DATA – CSV file, MS Access, dBase, FoxPro
Email
synchronisation with Outlook

The following

tables provide information on exchanging data of all types between different varieties

of handheld device.

Converting your Agenda

/ Calendar

Conversion	Details
vCal – Psion Agenda	vCal – This small EPOC program converts vCalendar files to/from Psion EPOC Agenda files. The program is useful for anyone who wants to move calendar information between different PC or PDA programs.
Palm OS DateBook	If you’re looking to convert Datebook entries from your Palm or Visor into another format such as Pocket PC, then going via MS Outlook is probably the best route. Supplied with your Palm is a program called Pocket Mirror, from Chapura which lets you synchronise to Outlook. Psion or Pocket PC can then be synchronised with Outlook. Some other options: Dba2Csv – This can be used to convert Palm Desktop .dba files to .csv for Google Calendars or Outlook without the hassle of setting up conduits, synching. etc, which also require access to a Palm device. Dba2Csv also preserves all repeats and exceptions, offers multiple options to export that correct other errors seen with other methods (GMT and DST correction), and allows you to preserve the colour coding of Palm Desktop 4.1.4 when moving to Google Calendars. DIMEX from linkesoft.com – This shareware program can convert datebook appointments to CSV format. Palm2CSV – a free web-based utility that converts Palm Datebooks to CSV format Alternatively, try DatebookCSV As a last resort, individual Datebook entries can be exported as vCal entries from Palm Desktop, or in some cases can be beamed to another machine.
Psion Agenda to text	AgnDump is a simple application for EPOC32 machines that creates an ASCII text file from an Agenda file. This can be imported into a number of different applications as required.
Psion EPOC Agenda to PC	If you’re looking to get your Psion diary onto your PC, there are two common options: Synchronise your Psion diary to the PC using PsiWin – This lets you keep your diary information on your Psion instep with your diary on the PC. You’ll need to be using MS Outlook, MS Schedule or Lotus Organiser as your PC diary Consider getting the Psion Emulator – a virtual Psion device on your PC. For details of this, see our Psion emulators page The most common solution is to use PsiWin to synchronise with Outlook. To do this, connect your Psion to the PC using PsiWin, go to the synchronise, and add a task. For step-by-step help with this, see the Psion Guide on synchronisation here.
To / from Nokia Smartphone	The Nokia PC connectivity software supplied with Nokia smartphones (including the 6680 and 6600) allows import of contacts and Calendar information from a Nokia mobile phone (via cable or infrared), from a Nokia 9110 smartphone, or from a Palm OS organiser (via Hotsync) Smart vCal may also be worth a look. This application for Series 60 phones including the Nokia 7650 , Nokia 3650 and Nokia 6600, helps you to import and export Calendar and To Do information in vCal format.

Converting your Contacts Address Book

Conversion	Details
Outlook Express to vCard	WAB2vCard – This utility converts the Outlook Express Windows Address Book (WAB) to either a single .vcf file (for bulk importing into Contacts) or a compact .csv file (for Data). Whereas the default .csv export leaves out multiple e-mail addresses and contains too many fields for Data, this version compacts several fields into one (Address rather than Street, Town) and exports all e-mail addresses rather than just the default address.
Palm OS Address Book import/export	Palm Desktop, the free software supplied with Palm OS devices, allows import of contact information in comma-delimited, tab-delimited, or vCard (.vcf format). It can also export your Address Book as a delimited text file. You may like to look at AIMEX from linkesoft.com – This shareware program can convert contact entries to CSV format.
Palm OS Address Book to Outlook	If you’re looking to convert Address Book entries from your Palm or Visor into another format such as Pocket PC, then going via MS Outlook is probably the best route. Supplied with your Palm is a program called Pocket Mirror, from Chapura which lets you synchronise to Outlook. Psion or Pocket PC can then be synchronised with Outlook.
Nokia Smartphone import and export	The Nokia PC connectivity software supplied with Nokia smartphones (including the 7650 and 3650) allows import of contacts and Calendar information from a Nokia mobile phone (via cable or infrared), from a Nokia 9110 smartphone, or from a Palm OS organiser (via Hotsync) Oxygen – A PC application that allows import and export of contact information from Nokia phones. A special version is available for Symbian OS phones, including the Nokia 7650 and Nokia 3650. It allows exchange of contact information with Outlook, Lotus Notes, plus supports CSV and other formats. Smart vCard – Import and export contact information in the vCard (.vcf) format. Versions available for the Nokia 92xx range, plus Series 60 phones including the Nokia 7650 and Nokia 3650.
EPOC Contacts to another PDA	Best bet is to synchronise your Contacts database with a desktop PC running a PIM solution such as MS Outlook (or Lotus Notes if supported), then synchronise your new PDA to the PC.
EPOC DATA to EPOC Contacts	DataContact – Convert EPOC Data to 5mx/Revo Contacts. Ideal when upgrading from Series 5 to 5mx or Revo.
EPOC Contacts to plain text	C2F is a small freeware application that runs on the Psion, reads your Contacts database and writes user-selected fields to a standard comma or tab-delimited ASCII file that other computers can process.
Psion EPOC to PC	If you’re looking to get your contacts onto your PC, there are two common options: Synchronise your Psion contacts to the PC using PsiWin – This lets you keep your address book on your Psion instep with your addresses on the PC. You’ll need to be using MS Outlook, MS Schedule or Lotus Organiser as your PC diary Consider getting the Psion Emulator – a virtual Psion device on your PC. For details of this, see our Psion emulators page The most common solution is to use PsiWin to synchronise with Outlook. To do this, connect your Psion to the PC using PsiWin, go to the synchronise icon, and add a task. For step-by-step help with this, see the Psion Guide on synchronisation here.
Psion DBF to PC	The freeware PC application 3Base can be used to convert Psion DBF databases to other formats – Available from 3-Lib A-List.
Symbian OS phones	Try Contacts Manager for Series 60 – This lets you transfer all or some of your contacts from your Series 60 device to other handsets, as well as save all contacts in formats that other PDAs and computers can read
Nokia CDB to PC	If you have a backup of a Nokia Series 60 or Nokia Series 80 Contacts file (contacts.cdb) that you’re trying to read on a PC, sadly this isn’t easy. The CDB file is Symbian’s own Contacts file format, and there’s no direct way to convert this to a form that can be read by a PC address book such as Outlook Use a PC Emulator – On the Nokia Developer’s suite, you can download an emulator (intended for developers) that allows you to run a virtual phone on your PC. You can use this to access files in the native Symbian format. Go to Forum Nokia, and look for the Series 60 or Series 80 SDK (Software Developers Kits) Try someone else with a Nokia device. If you’re able to send them your CDB file, they should be able to open it and copy off your data to a format that can be read on the PC. If you don’t know anyone with the same phone, try asking if someone in our forum can help – you may be able to mail someone your file for conversion – although they’ll be able to access your personal data Check the PC software – Check on the Nokia site to get the latest version of the PC Suite for your phone. It may be that the PC software is able to open or convert a CDB – Not likely to be much help, but you never know
Import into Outlook	Microsoft Outlook supports import of Contacts from a range of formats, including: Act, Comma Delimited (CSV) text files, Tab Delimited text files, dBase, ECCO, Lotus Organiser, Access, Excel, FoxPro & Schedule Plus – You can access this from the File > Import and Export menu option, selecting ‘Import from another program or file’. If, when you select this option, you can’t see the format you need, it could be that you didn’t install the converters when you installed Outlook – From Add/remove programs, select Outlook, press ‘change’, and ‘Importers and Exporters’.

Converting Word files

Conversion	Details
EPOC Word on a Psion	If you’re looking to read and convert Word files on a Psion itself, and not via a computer running PsiWin, consider nConvert from Neuon. Available for Series 5 family, Series 7 and Revo family
EPOC Word to text / HTML (Linux)	PsiConvert – is a Linux/Unix based EPOC file converter. It will convert EPOC Word files into either HTML or plain text. It will also convert Psion Sketch and MBM files to just about any graphics format you desire.

Converting Database files

Conversion	Details
Exporting Psion Data files	Psion handheld computers used the EPOC operating system. If you want to get your DATA files converted to another format, you have two options: You can use PsiWin on the PC to convert your files to another format. PsiWin supports CSV file, MS Access, dBase, FoxPro. More on PsiWin You can export data on the Psion itself – For an example of how to export from Psion DATA to the Pocket PC, see below. Also, take a look at our Psion Conversion article
Psion EPOC Data to Pocket PC	Pocket PC’s don’t have a built-in database application like the Psion, so the two options are to get a shareware Pocket PC database application (see below), or to convert your database into a spreadsheet that can be read by Pocket Excel. Here’s how to do this: From the Psion Data application menu, select "More \| Export as text file…", name the file using the extension .TXT (e.g. mydata.txt), and export the data (you may with to change the Export format using Options, as the default is comma-delimited with Double-quote as the qualifier). You now have a delimited text file. Copy this file to your PC. From Microsoft Excel, create a blank spreadsheet, and from the Tools menu, select "Get External data \| Import text file". Select your text file, make sure you have the right delimiter (e.g. comma not tab), then import the text. All of your data should be viewable. Save the file in Excel format (e.g. mydata.xls), then copy this new file over to the Pocket PC. You should be able to read the data with Pocket Excel.
Pocket PC databases	There is no built-in Pocket PC database application, but there are several shareware ones available – see www.handango.com. ActiveSync can convert databases into Pocket Access format (.CDB), for use with a database application that can handle that format. If you have installed a Pocket PC database application, and have a text file that you wish to import, such as a delimited DATA file as detailed above, you can also import your text file into Access, then using ActiveSync, copy the Access MDB file over to the Pocket PC for viewing in Pocket Access format. There’s a step-by-step explanation of this at the BioHazard site If you’re looking for an application that’s compatible with .CDB files, take a look at Data On The Run, which can read Pocket Access files, great for use with Access and ActiveSync on the PC. For a more powerful application, take a look at Pocket Database from Pocket Innovations – this caters for import of delimited files, for those without access to Microsoft Access.
PC to PDA	Microsoft Access seems to be the most common PC database application. Standard database files are in the .mdb format, but Access supports a number of export formats, including the ability to export as XLS (spreadsheet) format, as well as to other database formats such as dBase (dbf), Lotus 1-2-3 and Paradox. It also supports export as rich or plain text. If your PDA has a built-in spreadsheet application, you may find that this is adequate for your requirements. PsiWin for Psion devices can convert directly from Access to its own database format, and we’ve covered Pocket PC databases above. If you’re looking for a true database application for your PDA, take a look at the applications available from www.handango.com.

Converting Psion EPOC

Sheet files

Conversion	Details
Excel to/from Sheet	Conversion via a PC can be done with PsiWin. Note that EPOC ER5 only supports single worksheets within a Sheet file. When an Excel workbook that contains multiple sheets is converted to EPOC, all of the Excel sheets are copied into a single EPOC Sheet file. If you want each Excel worksheet to appear as its own Sheet file, you will need to make each worksheet a workbook (.xls file) which you can do from Excel’s "Edit \| Move or copy sheet". If you’re looking to read and convert Excel spreadsheets on a Psion itself, consider nConvert from Neuon. This handles Microsoft Excel 4.1, 95, 97 and 2000 to Symbian Sheet.
Excel to Psion DATA	Thanks to David Blaikie for submitting this solution for converting Excel to Psion DATA: Save the Excel file save as .CSV (comma separated value) Change the file extension from .csv to .txt (as Psion doesn’t understand .csv) Import the text file into the psion with no conversion (otherwise PsiWin will try to convert .txt into a Psion Word document ) Set up all the correct labels in a blank Psion DATA database Import the text file into the database setting up the delimiter as commas Delete the first entry, which contains the labels Delete any spurious entries
Symbian Sheet to Excel	The Nokia 9210 Sheet application has the ability to export sheet files in Microsoft Excel format. This can be done from the File menu. If only other Symbian OS applications supported export in this way…

Converting Text Files

Conversion	Details
EPOC text to MAC text	EPOC to Mac Text Convert v2.0 – EPOC to Mac Text Convert, a simple Macintosh drag and drop application, pulls text out of EPOC Word and OPL files. It also converts the carriage return and line-feeds both ways for plain text files.

E-Text reader

Conversion

Details

Microsoft

Reader

Convert

Word docs into Microsoft Reader (.lit) files by downloading the free "Read

in Microsoft Reader add-in" application from www.microsoft.com/reader.

This creates an extra item on MS Word’s toolbar to convert an open Word document

to the format used in the Reader. Note that you’ll need to have Microsoft’s desktop

version of Reader installed on the PC before document conversion will work.

Microsoft Reader (on both PC and Pocket PC) requires activation, which is used

when viewing documents protected by copyright. Activation isn’t required for viewing

documents you create yourself. There are links to over 1500 free books from the

Microsoft Reader site.

Converting images

Conversion	Details
EPOC MBM to Windows BMP	bmconv.exe is a small DOS application that converts EPOC’s MBM (Multi bitmap format) to/from PC BMP format (available from here or here). You need to run this in a DOS session. From the Windows Start button, select ‘Run’, then enter CMD. This takes you to a DOS box. Move to the directory containing BMCONV and enter the path and filename of the source and target. Here are two examples: bmconv /u c:\temp\psionfile.mbm c:\temp\windowsfile.bmp – converts from MBM to BMP bmconv c:\temp\psionfile.mbm c:\temp\windowsfile.bmp – converts from BMP to MBM More details can be found in the HTML help file with PsiWin, or by entering BMCONV and pressing return.
Psion Series 3 .PIC to Windows BMP	Psion’s PsiWin v1.0 and v1.1 have built-in converters. No other stand-alone converters are known to us.
Psion Series 3 .PIC to EPOC 5 MBM	5Pic, from Richard Wakelin, is an EPOC application that allows PIC files to be viewed on an ER5 machine, and saves as an EPOC MBM file if required. You can find this free application on Tucows

Converting Sound

Conversion	Details
Psion to PC Sound	Psion Series 3: Convert from the Series 3 wve sound format to PC WAV with wav2wve2.zip and wve2wav.zip – (available from here) Psion Series 5mx RECORD files can be converted to WAV files using PsiWin, or rec2wav (available from www.bioeddie.co.uk/Psion/main/Programs/pc_tools.html)

Linux

Conversion	Details
EPOC to Linux	PLP Tools Project – Project to connect Psions to Linux

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Information for PDA and smartphone users wishing to convert their data to another format.

Synchronising via your PC

The following

tables provide information on exchanging data of all types between different varieties

of handheld device.

Converting your Agenda

/ Calendar

Converting your Contacts Address Book

Converting Word files

Converting Database files

Converting Psion EPOC

Sheet files

Converting Text Files

E-Text reader

Converting images

Converting Sound

Linux

Need help with a format not listed? Ask a question or discuss file conversion
in our PDA forum

Other useful links:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Information for PDA and smartphone users wishing to convert their data to another format.

Synchronising via your PC

The following tables provide information on exchanging data of all types between different varieties of handheld device.

Converting your Agenda / Calendar

Converting your Contacts Address Book

Converting Word files

Converting Database files

Converting Psion EPOC Sheet files

Converting Text Files

E-Text reader

Converting images

Converting Sound

Linux

Need help with a format not listed? Ask a question or discuss file conversion in our PDA forum

Other useful links:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

The following

tables provide information on exchanging data of all types between different varieties

of handheld device.

Converting your Agenda

/ Calendar

Converting Psion EPOC

Sheet files

Need help with a format not listed? Ask a question or discuss file conversion
in our PDA forum