Mine did the same, but it doesn't affect calls or text messages, I think the desire just ignores the "-".
I'm not sure if it did it when I sync'ed from google also, which means that when you change them, if you have to reset your phone the problem will just re-appear.
I am sure that if there isn't a way to do it yet the kind android developers of the world will write a app which does it for you, but I guess that takes time.

 

I'll be using that next time! I did it all manually last time!

 

wicked! thanks for the app pointer, was annoying me. After a htc sync my contacts some how dissappered!

 

Thanks for that!

Bloody annoying, the way the yanks just assume that everyone else in the world want to format stuff the same as their arse-about-face ways.

 

bit more long winded, but if you're with the bank santander and get charged .89 for the app and 1.25 for the overseas transaction fee, simply on your PC, export all your gmail contacts to csv and do a find and replace on "-" then import them back. deleting all gmail and clearing cache on contacts storage. Yes it takes 2 1/2 minutes, but if you have already paid god knows what for Microsoft office (Excel) why pay more for an app to do what you've already paid for 100 times over?

Or Sun Open Office for free has the same functionality as Excel.

Normally I like to support apps, but 3 of this guys 5 posts are selling this app. I just want all to know you can do this yourself for free with a sli9ght bit of effort. But pay for an app if you want to, it will be quicker and easier.

 

Im not talking about vcards. csv (i.e comma separated values), on your computer.

 

Legit or not, the guy pushing the app had multiple accounts on the forum all with the sole purpose of pushing the sale of that app.

Proceed with caution... he will not be back to the site.

 

Perhaps you could delete the quote in post #3 with the link?

 

There is a free version of the app which i tried and it didn't work!

All my contacts are stored under 'phone'. how can i get them to 'gmail' in order to export and edit on pc?

 

You can export to SD via the people / contacts app. When you import them back, you can add them as google contacts. Then you can export in gmail on the PC, once sync'd up.

 

Well, I only got the free version, which just parses the files on the SD. I too would go the Excel route otherwise.

 

I have tried the excel version and that didnt seem to work for me. I even tried exporting to sd card (backup), attaching phone to pc in mass storage and editing the contacts backup file using notepad with replace.

When i then import the newly edited file all the '-' are put back in.

Should i have cleared data from contacts storage or was it ok to just delete all contacts prior to importing?

 

The SD card method doesnt work as it puts them back.

You need to export to excel from gmail
delete the contacts in gmail
clear contacts storage
reimport to gmail once edited
sync

What exactly didnt work in excel?

 

I was able to find and replace the '-'. As all numbers in UK start with a zero, when i did remove all the '-' the leading zero in the number disapperared so i set cell format to 'text' in order to have the leading zero again.

When i selected save in excel it said something about certain features may not be saved. I saved anyway and reimported to google contacts via pc and then synced on phone but the dashes reapeared....i will just add that i didnt clear contacts storage data before the re-import, i just deleted contacts from phone.

 

Its probably just the contacts storage then. Check they're not present in gmail itself. Then if not, clear the storage and resync.

 

Thanks SUroot. Got it all sorted now.

I exported my contacts from 'phone' to sd card then imported them under 'google'. Synced my phone in order to have them in the online service.

Via google contacts service on pc i exported them in gogole csv format and edited them in excel 2010. I had to change the phone number column format to 'text' in order to get the leading zero in the number to stay put. then saved this file.

Deleted contacts from from google serive on pc and cleared contacts storage on phone.

Imported csv file into google contacts on pc. Re-synced phone and hey presto all is good!

Going to save the edited csv file as a backup.

 

while exporting contacts to sd card the first time, which all are exported. only the ticked category in the 'view' contact or all the contacts including the sim,phone,google and fb ones??
thn after exporting it to sd card, connect phone to pc and save the file thr. thn delete the entire 'contact storage' in 'settings'?? the entire contacts in phone memory, gmail and fb will be deleted? or just the ticked category?? the sim contacts wont be deleted at all, rite??
thanks.

 

Were not talking about export to sd in case you think we are

 

exported gmail and phone contacts to sd and then imported it to my gmail account. and tidied up the account contacts. then synced it with the phone. one thing which dint work out are the calender entries. it showed lots of duplicates. so i cleared the data in 'calender storage' in 'settings' which erased all the calender entries. but when i synced the calender after that, only very few entires are synced. dont understand wat occured in between.

2) also, wat happens if 'dialer storage' data is cleared. my whole inbox got cleared. i thought it deletes the phones call records, but that stayed intact. strange.

3) is there any way to backup the FB contacts similarly, to phone or PC and then sync it with gmail?