Can I sync my iPad with Outlook?

Q  I bought an Apple iPad 2 and am delighted with it. Despite being 87, I am able to exploit most of its capabilities. This says more about its user-friendliness than my prowess!

However, I find the thought of manually inputting my many contacts daunting. I wonder if it is possible to transfer my contacts books from Microsoft Outlook on my Windows XP PC?

On a similar note, is it possible to transfer photos stored on a USB memory key to my iPad?
Eric Atkinson

A  Synchronising stuff between a computer and an iPad – be it contacts, photos or almost anything else has, up until recently, had a heavy reliance on iTunes, Apple’s desktop media application.

This situation has evolved somewhat with the dual launch of iOS 5, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, and iCloud, the company’s new online-synchronisation service. This complicates our ability to answer, but we’ll do our best.

You wrote to us before either of these had materialised into mainstream existence, so we’ll assume you are using an earlier version of iOS.

To check, start your iPad then tap the Settings icon followed by General then About: if the Version field has a number below 5 (our guess is you’ll have version 4.3 or later), then read on. If not, skip to the penultimate paragraph and read the guidance for synchronising using iCloud.

To begin, launch iTunes. If you don’t already have this installed (perhaps because your iPad was activated for you in store, by Apple staff), then it is a free download from www.apple.com/itunes.

Once installed, use the supplied USB cable to connect your iPad to your PC. If you haven’t already updated your iPad to run iOS 5 then iTunes will prompt you to download and install this now.

If you wish to do this – it is not required to achieve what you want, but iOS 5 does have new features, including wireless synchronisation via iCloud – follow the prompts and then skip the next couple of paragraphs. Otherwise, follow the prompts to label the iPad and to log in to your Apple account (assuming you have one).

Now click the iPad’s label under the Devices heading in the left-hand navigation pane then click the Info tab in the main iTunes pane. Click to tick the ‘Sync Contacts with’ box, select Outlook from the dropdown menu then use the options below to tweak how and which contacts are synchronised.

Now click the Sync button (at the bottom right of the iTunes window) and Outlook and iPad contacts will be married. This only works with versions of Outlook from 2003 onwards.

Synchronising images from your USB memory key (or any other location for that matter) is similar. Click the Photos tab in the main iTunes pane then click to tick the ‘Sync Photos from’ box. Now pick Choose folder from the dropdown menu to the right then, as with contacts, use the options below to customise what’s transferred.

If, on the other hand, your iPad has been updated to iOS 5, then synchronising is a bit easier – though it does require an Apple account (if you don’t already have one, you’ll be prompted to create one).

If your iPad 2 has iOS 5 then you should have iTunes installed, as it is iTunes that is used to update the iPad operating system. As such, once your contacts have been synchronised the first time (using much the same process as above), pick up your iPad, tap Settings followed by iCloud.

Tap Contacts to switch it to On and then, when prompted, tap Merge to have the iPad’s contacts merged with those stored in your Apple iCloud account.