In Outlook 2007 when you create a contact and add a phone number it will automatically format the number in for format of its choosing. Unfortunately the formatting looks horrid and there is no way to change it or disable the feature.
From what I can gather it does the formatting to ensure the country and state area code is included in the phone number, this information would be helpful if you use an integrated VOIP solution. But for the average user this leaves the information looking visually confusing.
To stop Outlook from automatically changing the layout of the phone numbers you will need to change your phone area code to be more than 5 digits.
Please keep in mind that this might break other features, like VOIP dialing or connecting to the Internet through a dial up connection.
- Click the Start button, and select Control Panel
- Under the list, select Phone and Modem Options
- Click on the Edit button
- Change the Area code to 99999
- Click OK and OK to save the settings.