I designed a custom form in Outlook 2010 that I have now edited in Outlook 2013.  I need to save the form as a .ost template but when I click the "Save-as" option it just returns me to the form without ever bringing up the save-as dialog.

This was on my work PC running Windows 7 Enterprise with Office 2013.

I tried running a repair on office from "Programs and features" but that didn't fix it.

I also tried opening the form on my home PC running Windows 8 with Office 2013 and I have the exact same problem.

When I open the same form on a PC with Outlook 2010 the "Save-as" works fine and I can save it as a .oft file.

I am an early adopter of Office 2013 for my corporation testing to ensure there are no issues prior to us rolling out Office 2013 to our enterprise (~240,000 users).  

Please help.

• Edited by nsantalu Thursday, November 28, 2013 3:02 AM

Hi,

I suppose we are talking about .oft templates? .ost files are usually used as Outlook data files while .oft files are templates.

What is the extension of the original form your created in Outlook 2010? .oft, or .msg or others?

Have you tried "save as" with other templates? The same issue persists?

I tested on my side, but couldn't reproduce the issue:

I created an .oft template in Outlook 2010, when I tried "save as" in both Outlook 2010 & 2013, "save as" dialog just appeared as expected.

Please run Outlook in Safe Mode, to determine if it's 3rd-party add-ins related:

Press Win + R and type outlook.exe /safe in the blank box, then press Enter.

If theres no problem in Safe Mode, disable the suspicious add-ins to verify which add-ins caused this issue.

We can also perform a clean boot to determine whether background programs are interfering with Outlook:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Regards.

Melon Chen
TechNet Community Support

See answer to your same question in

Problem with customizing outlook 2013 contact form
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/d2f163d9-af1f-4a52-8d8c-0bd178685ee3/problem-with-customizing-outlook-2013-contact-form?forum=outlook

Sorry I meant .oft not .ost.    I have the original form as both a .oft and a .fdm file and I have it publised to my personal forms library.   I was able to save it from the publised form under advanced settings in Outlook to a .fdm file but that doesn't work for .oft. 

I only have this issue using save-as with custom forms, it works fine for messages etc..

Clean boot and safe mode didn't change anything.

As it's happening on more than once PC and my home PC doesn't have any extra add-ins or GPO I don't think its specific to my Outlook configuration.  Someone else replied saying its a bug with Office 2013 but that there is not a fix yet :(

See answer to your same question in

Problem with customizing outlook 2013 contact form
Karl Timmermans [Outlook MVP] "Outlook Contact Import/Export/Data Mgmt" http://www.contactgenie.com

I agree that article has the same problem and it's marked as resolved but there isn't a solution in the article so much as the user was able to find another way to get the file back.  That was a workaround, it doesn't address the actual problem with "Save-as" not working for custom forms.

I had actually replined already on that thread and someone replied saying it is a bug but still no solution.

I had actually replined already on that thread and someone replied saying it is a bug but still no solution.

I am an early adopter of Office 2013 for my corporation testing to ensure there are no issues prior to us rolling out Office 2013 to our enterprise (~240,000 users).  

Something to add to this - specifically as it relates to "testing to ensure that there are no issues.........." in reference to contact custom forms

In O'2013, if the first page of the contact form has been modified, the font for the FullName field will be extremely small - virtually unreadable for most people. This has not currently been resolved and as before, stress that an support case be opened with MS if the issue impacts you.

I submitted an incident to our Enterprise Office team requesting that they open a case with MS.  I haven't heard anything back on it since.

As for what I was expecting from this tread... just hoping someone knew a way to get it working.

I can readilly reproduce the issue on any computer running Office 2013 even with a brand new form that has hand nothing changed on it.

I am an early adopter of Office 2013 for my corporation testing to ensure there are no issues prior to us rolling out Office 2013 to our enterprise (~240,000 users).  

Something to add to this - specifically as it relates to "testing to ensure that there are no issues.........." in reference to contact custom forms

In O'2013, if the first page of the contact form has been modified, the font for the FullName field will be extremely small - virtually unreadable for most people. This has not currently been resolved and as before, stress that an support case be opened with MS if the issue impact

We have about 20 different forms and keep them in a network folder for people since Office 365 doesn't have the ability to manage forms in Public Folders - at least I haven't found it.

What exactly do you mean by "Office 365 doesn't have the ability to manage forms in Public Folders"?

There's a difference between "publishing a form" versus "saving a form as an .oft file" so curious as to which of these two you are referring to.

Hi,

i am also having this issue.  what is the solution?

The OFT files are stored here:

C:\Data\_aOutlook Forms

They need to be save back to that folder, for development.  Then they are copied to a server so that another group can publish the form to Outlook Organization folder.

Thanks

Mike

Brilliant! You just saved my day! :)

I have a client with dozens of forms that want some improvements in them.