Any Outlook .pst experts?

I am migrating from XP Office 2003 to Mac OSX and need to import my Outlook data. Should be simple, but is proving complicated
I am playing with a few options:
a) Try complete migration to the Mac platform; Ive found an app called PST Bridge which will impressively open all of the pst data and export to ical and mac mail, but I'm finding that Mac Pages will not open many of my word documents correctly, and therefore I may end up using MacOffice 2011

b)So I am doing a 30 day free trial of fMacOffice 2011 and hit a brick wall with 2002 outlook.pst because office says that it no longer supports the older ANSI versions of pst, which I believe were converted to a newer format in 2003

Strangely, I am using Office 2003, but it is somehow still using the older pst format

Sorry for the long story, but Im dying to give enough info...

Question being asked is how do I get my 2002 pst updated to 2003 later versions into MacOffice 2011? Can I use my older 2003 outlook to somehow do the conversion so that MacOffice 2011 will import the file?

Why are Microsoft being so unhelpful in this upgrade process or is it because I have missed so many versions?

Not a pst expert by any means but if I've understood correctly you could find someone with a newer version of office, either 2007 or 2010
set up a new profile in their version of outlook and import 2002 pst into that. 2007 or 2010 will modernise the pst file.
Keep the new pst file and delete the profile so their machine is left as was. Now try the import into macoffice

I only have office 2003 so can't help with the conversion but I'm sure there's a kind soul on here who may help.

pst files are notoriously flaky

A bit of a manual solution - but it works (depends how much data you have I guess)

1) set up a gmail account
2) make sure it is IMAP
3) add this account to Outlook
4) drag and drop your old email into the new gmail account
5) set up your Mac to talk to the gmail IMAP account
6) drag and drop your email from gmail to Apple Mail

If you keep stuff in folders then you can create the folders in Mail before you drag mails into them

IMAP is good, POP is evil

Hi,
How large is the file, .pst files can be unwieldy if too large
There are various options available, if you're willing to pay £13 there's Apple's PST Converter

Otherwise read this MacRumors thread
There's these apps and widgets Little Machines and Read pst or perhaps Thunderbird

Whatever method you use please do this on a copy of the .pst file so that you can try again if any method screws the file up.

I did this some time ago and, ISTR, I used Thunderbird (free email client for Mac) to import the messages from the .pst and then drag dropped them from the TB directory directly into Mail.

Keep a good backup of the .pst - the files are enormous and fragile.

yep, its a main. There is various software options for PST migration, but whatever you do, keep a copy/backup. I found more problems with things like calendar items, whch have different means of formatting etc.

Using Googlemail to sync is also a good option, and if your pst is massive, its probably a good idea to archive a load. I now keep most of my archive messages in my google account - which gives up to 7GB. If I need more, I'll just open another google account for syncing with.

I solved my pst export issue using pst bridge from the app store: free but an additional £20 to export the viewable data. Although pst bridge opened everything, the final result needed a LOT of manual sorting and re categorising:
All contacts are exported to vcf cards including all attached notes, which is excellent, but let down because the outlook categories are not carried along with the contacts This export then needs manually importing into appropriate Mac Address book groups
The outlook calendar export works well and is easily imported into ical calendars
Tasks are 'opened' but are not exportable, so that's a failure
I've emailed tech support and received a helpful personalised reply admitting these failings and claiming that future developments will sort these shortcomings in an otherwise clever product. When purchasing the product, its impossible to see the deficiencies, but overall my import to mac .AFER LOT OF HARD WORK, is successful and cost a total of £20