Converting my Palm Desktop Contacts to iPad2

As a holdover from my Palm Pilot days I've got Palm Desktop by Access on my Windows 7 PC as my address book even though I have long since discarded my PDA. This is the most complete and functional address book I've ever used and I would really not want to throw it (or all the keying I've done) away. But, I want to get that data onto my iPad2 when it gets here.

My understanding from Palm Desktop is that I can export the files in the following formats: *.aba, *.csv, *.txt, and *.tab. So far the only documentation I have on the iPad is the book iPad for Dummies and it does not appear from that limited source that I have any viable options. Windows 7 offers and I'm using Windows Live Mail but I sure don't want to import my Palm Desktop files into my Contacts list as that would result in a horrible mess as far as my e-mail address book is concerned.

Perhaps my problems are both a lack of knowledge about Windows Contacts as well as iPad contacts. Any suggestions you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Do you have a gmail account? If so, transfer them from you Palm to your gmail acct. Then use your gmail to transfer contacts/calendar to your iPad.

For the record, my neighbor found a creative way to convert my contacts: I printed them out and he scanned them in on his flatbed scanner with sheet feed, then converted them to a PDF file which I can then read on the iPad2. This can be done as often as needed if I continue to use the Palm software.