Hi, I'm such a newbie it's painful :) We were given access to Sharepoint 2007. We created a list library for the purpose of allowing people to submit documents to a general place whereby we would move them to the right document library. It was nice because it allowed us to include attachments in the submission. However, I didn't realize I would have such trouble getting the document attachment along with all its attributes out. We have something like 10 additional columns that contain data we don't wish to lose. I learned the hard way that lists don't appear to support explorer view. Additionally, I'm unable to copy the rows from the list to the document library. Can I convert the list to a document library thereby giving me the ability to copy from doc library to doc library? If not, what options do I have so that I don't lose all this data and have to rekey it? Thank you!!! R

Hi, No, it is no possible to convert a List to a Document Library using OOB. Option I can think off is to write a custom code to copy/move the data from List to Document Library. Thanks, Skancharla

As stated you can't convert OOB. You can avoid a certain amount of work by using Datasheet View of the List (and of the Document Library) to copy your meta data across in bulk. Roughly. 1. Add a new column (X) to the List and give it values 1,2,3 etc. (anything unique) 2. Create a document Library with the same columns/fields as your List. 3. Copy your attachments from the List to the Document Library. 4. Add to column X in the document library the same values you have in the List (so that the value for the document is the same as the value was for that document as an attachment). Now you can prepare for a bulk transfer of the metadata by creating a View using Datasheet View in both the List and the Document Library. The view should be sorted on Column X and should contain all transferable fields (*). You can then copy and paste all the cells except for the filename column. (*) All transferable fields means all normal fields. It does not contain Created; Created By; Modified; Modified By - as these fields get overwritten and can't be transfered - and does not contain fields like Calculated or Lookup. The only normal field you can't include is Multiline text as that can't be bulk copied as part of a total cell copy/paste. Hope this helps. You'll have to play around with this idea yourself if it's unclear. 2010 Books: SPF 2010; SPS 2010; SPD 2010; InfoPath 2010; Workflow etc. 2007 Books: WSS 3.0; MOSS 2007; SPD 2007; InfoPath 2007; PerformancePoint; SSRS; Workflow Both lists also include books in French; German; Spanish with even more languages in the 2007 list.

Thank you, Mike, for your response! I have just a few more questions for clarification purposes. In step 3 when you say to copy the attachments, is there an easy way to do this? For some reason I can't get to an explorer view in the list. We have over 100 submitted list items to copy. In step 4, does this mean I should have two windows open. One in the datasheet view of the old list and one in the datasheet view of the new document library? Then highlight all the rows to be copied, right click 'copy', and then move to the other window with the document library and click paste? Thanks again! R

On 3. I so rarely use attachments that I'm afraid I have no ideas on speeding up the process. On 4. You are correct. The best method is to have both sites/lists/views open in two different browsers. (*) Adding a bit more meat. Have the column X as column one (and if you include it at all the column with the file name as column two) in both Datasheet views. Then you copy and paste all the rest of the cells. (I realise you know this but often it's forgotten when first creating the views and you have to do it again) (*) because of the nature of copy/paste you could of course do this in one browser copy by doing the copy and then opening the other site to do the paste but it's much neater doing it in two as you suggest. Mike 2010 Books: SPF 2010; SPS 2010; SPD 2010; InfoPath 2010; Workflow etc. 2007 Books: WSS 3.0; MOSS 2007; SPD 2007; InfoPath 2007; PerformancePoint; SSRS; Workflow Both lists also include books in French; German; Spanish with even more languages in the 2007 list.

Finished! It took a while, but luckily I found a reasonable way to get at all the files. I went to Network Places and specified the url of the Sharepoint site. From there, I was able to see that lists store their attachments by ID number under an attachment directory. I was able to get at all the files.