The Address Book Application | Mac OS X Bible, Panther Edition

Mac OS X includes an Address Book application to manage contact information.

Address Book is located on your hard disk in the Applications folder, and should not be confused with the .Mac Address Book, which is located on your iDisk.

You can use iSync to synchronize your Address Book contacts with your .Mac Address Book, your handheld PDA, or your cell phone.

Mail, iCal, iChat, Safari, and Sherlock use the information from Address Book to address emails, invite contacts to chats or events, autofill online forms, and customize driving instructions.

You can use Address Book to:

Store and look up contact information.
Organize and change the formatting of contact information.
Print phone lists or mailing labels.
Send contact information by email to an individual or group.
Automatically merge duplicate contacts.
Back up your contact information.

Address Book setup

The main Address Book window displays three columns. The first column shows the directories and groups defined in the Address Book. The second column shows the names in the selected group, one name per line. The third column shows the card selected in the second column.

Figure 18-27 shows the Address Book window as it appears when you first open the application.

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Figure 18-27: The Address Book window.

Notice that your name already appears in the Name list. If you click on your name, you will see your address card, which may be filled with information from the .Mac System Preference pane, if you have entered it there.

Tip

Even if you do not use .Mac, and even if you do not intend to manage contacts with Address Book, it’s still a good idea to enter your personal information on this card, which is marked “me” in the lower-left corner of your user picture. As mentioned above this information is used by other applications.

To set up your Contact Information:

Select your card.
Click the Edit button below the card display area.
Add your contact information to the empty fields. Press Tab to move from field to field. You can return additional lines to the address field only by pressing Return.
If one of the fields does not apply, skip it; it will not be shown on the final card.
To add more fields for additional phone numbers, click the green plus button next to the field’s name. This button appears after you have used the initial fields provided. To remove a field, click the red minus button.
Choose Card Make This My Card.

Using the main Address Book window

You can work with contacts in the Address Book window as follows:

Select contacts in the list. Click the name or any other information listed for a contact to select the card. z-click additional contacts to select them also or Shift-click to select a range of contacts. If you select one contact, its basic information appears in the third column of the Address Book window.
View the list by group. Choose a group from the Group column.
Filter the list. Type in the Search box. The Address Book looks for the search text in the information listed for each contact and hides all contacts whose listed information doesn’t include the search text. In other words, the Address Book lists only address cards that have the search text in at least one column in the list.
Resize columns. Drag a column heading’s right borderline left or right to make the column narrower or wider.
Set View. Switch between single contacts view or the lists plus contact view by clicking on the buttons in the upper-right corner of the address book window. You can also choose View Card Only or View Card and Columns. When viewing a single card, advance to the next or previous card with the arrow buttons in the lower left of the window.

Setting Address Book Preferences

The Address Book’s Preferences window’s General pane shown in Figure 18-28 displays options for display order, sort order, address format, and font size. The checkbox to Notify people when my card changes is grayed out and unavailable unless a group has been created.

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Figure 18-28: The Address Book Preferences window’s General pane.

The Synchronize with Exchange checkbox enables the Configure button, leading to a sheet where you can set up Address Book to synchronize with Microsoft Exchange.

In the toolbar, note the icons for other preference panes. The Template pane enables you to set the configuration of fields and labels for new address cards. The Phone pane turns on and off automatic formatting of phone numbers, selected from a pop-up menu; use this to conform your phone numbers to the standards used in a particular country.

The vCard format is a common standard used in many applications and uses, from mail programs to PDAs such as Palm Pilots and Handspring Visors, and many newer models of cellular phones. The vCard pane sets the version of the vCard format used, enables a private “Me” card, and enables notes from your address cards to be included in your exported vCards.

The LDAP pane is for setting up Address Book to access contact information on a server that uses the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. LDAP is an Internet protocol used by email programs to look up contact information on a network directory server. Such servers are often used by larger companies. Contact your network administrator for the information to enter here. Click the plus sign button to drop down a sheet with fields for name, server, search base, port, scope, and authentication details to be entered.

Once this information is entered, click on Directories in the Group column of the Address Book main window, and type in the search field to lookup results from the network directory.

Working with Address Book contacts

To add a contact to Address Book:

Open Address Book.
Choose File New Card. A new card is created.
Add the contact information to the empty fields. Press Tab to move from field to field. You can add additional lines to the address field only, by pressing Return.
If one of the fields does not apply, skip it; it will not be shown on the final card.
To add more fields for additional phone numbers, click the green plus button next to the field’s name. This button appears after you have used the initial fields provided. To remove a field, click the red minus button.
If you want to change the field labels, click the label, choose Custom from the pop-up menu, and enter the new label name. The custom label appears on this contact only. If you want to add a label to all contacts, choose Address Book Preferences and click Template.
Add notes of any kind to the contact field at the bottom of the card.
You can add a picture by dragging a picture file to the square box at the top of the card. Or, you can double-click the picture area, click Choose, and navigate to a picture file. Use the slider to enlarge and crop the picture. Click the video camera button to use a connected video camera to take a snapshot. The resulting picture is used by other applications that access Address Book information, but will never be seen by the person it represents (except for your own picture).
When done, click the Edit button to see the completed card — something like Figure 18-29. Click this same button to edit the card at any time, using the techniques above.

Figure 18-29: A new card has just been created in Address Book.

Tip

The Notes field at the bottom of each card can be set up with keywords associating that contact with a specific group. You can then use the Search field to enter the keyword and quickly locate all the members of this group. For example, if you search for “enemy,” all contacts with the keyword “enemy” in the Notes field would be listed.

To remove a contact from the Address Book, select the contact you want to remove and press the Delete key or choose Edit Delete Person. Click the Yes button when asked if you are sure that you want to delete the card for “contact name.”

The contact is removed from the name list, and from any groups it might belong to.

Importing contacts

It is possible to import contacts from another application you may be currently using to store them only if the application supports exporting in vCard or LDIF format (LDAP Interchange Format Files). LDIF is the format an LDAP server uses to exchange information with other LDAP servers.

To import contacts into the Address Book, first check your application’s manual to see if it supports exporting addresses in vCard of LDIF formats and then follow these steps:

Export your addresses from the other application as either vCards or an LDIF file.
In Address Book, choose File Import, revealing a submenu.
Choose the format from the Import submenu.
Select the file that contains the exported addresses.

You can view the last batch of addresses imported to Address by clicking Last Import in the Group column. This list is updated when you import addresses.

Creating and working with groups

After you add a few contacts to the Address Book, you can create groups to make mailing to several people at once easier. To add a new group, do one of the following:

Click the plus sign button at the bottom of the Group column.
Choose File New Group.
In the Name column, select several contacts that you want to be in the new group and then choose File New Group From Selection.

Any of these actions displays a new Group Name in the Group column. Type the name for the new group and then press Return.

You can add contacts to a group by selecting them in the Names column and dragging the selected names to the group.

To drag a contact successfully, position the mouse pointer over the contact’s icon in the Names list, hold down the mouse button, and then drag. As you drag, a small address card icon follows the pointer, and a green plus sign icon appears, indicating what you are dragging will be added to the destination.

You can remove a contact from a group by selecting the group, selecting the contact, and pressing Delete. You can also choose Edit Remove From Group. A sheet drops down that asks, “Are you sure you want to delete contact name or simply remove it from the group Group Name?” Click the Remove From Group button. The contact is not removed from the name list using this technique. Click the Delete button to remove the contact from all groups and lists.

Delete a group by selecting its name and pressing the Delete key, or choosing Edit Delete Group. A sheet drops down that asks, “Are you sure you want to delete the selected group?” Click the Yes button.

You can even set up a group to contain other groups. Drag the groups you want to include to the destination group.

To see which group or groups a contact belongs to, hold down the Option key while selecting the contact’s name in the Name column. The groups the contact belongs to will appear highlighted in the Group column.

If group members have multiple email addresses, choose which email address to use when sending mail to the group. Choose Edit Edit Distribution List. Select the group in the left column. The email address listed in bold on the right is the one which will be used when sending mail to the group. Change the email address used by clicking on the one you want to use; this address is now shown in bold. You can also change the phone numbers, fax numbers, or mailing addresses used when printing a distribution list by selecting a choice from the pop-up menu at the column heading of the right column. Click OK when done.

Exchanging contacts

You can copy contacts as vCards to the desktop, to the body of an email message as an attachment, or to a chat window to send to the person you are chatting with. Select the contacts you want to copy in the Name column, and drag them to their destination.

Multiple selected contacts will be copied into a single vCard, unless you hold down the Option key while dragging them, resulting in separate individual vCards. You can also make your selections and choose File Export vCard.

To keep certain information private before you send your vCard:

Choose Address Book Preferences.
Click vCard.
Select Enable Private ‘Me’ Card.
Close the Preferences window.
Select your card in the Name column.
Click Edit.
Select only the checkboxes next to the information that will be sent.

To send a group an update of the information on your vCard, choose File > Send Updates. In the Send Updates dialog, select the group, type a subject and message (including if you wish a request to be sent their latest vCards), and click Send. A group email message goes out via Mail containing your updated vCard. If you wish this process to happen automatically whenever a change is made to your vCard, select “Notify people when my card changes” in the General pane of Address Book preferences.

When someone sends you a vCard, first save it to any location you choose, then double-click it. Address Book will launch if it is not already running, and a sheet will drop down from the Address Book window, giving you one of the following sets of choices:

If the contact is not a duplicate of a contact already in your Address Book, you are asked to OK or Cancel its addition.
If the contact is a duplicate, you have three choices. You can click OK to update the existing card with the new card, click Cancel, or click Review Duplicates to bring up a window showing the new card with a red Update ribbon at the top right. Compare this card to the one already in your Address Book, and click a button to Keep Old, Keep New, Keep Both, or Update the old card with the new information. If you select Update, the information to be updated is displayed in red, and newly added information is blue.
If you are sent a vCard with multiple duplicate contacts, the Review Duplicates window shows them sequentially after clicking the Next button. You can apply your chosen action to all the contacts by clicking the Apply to All checkbox (see Figure 18-30).

Figure 18-30: A single vCard (upper left) bears the contact’s name, but a vCard with multiple contacts (lower left) is called “vCards.” Double- clicking “vCards” brings down the “Importing cards” sheet and clicking Review Duplicates brings up the Reviewing Card window.

Combine duplicate contacts to retain all their information on a single card. Use the Search field to get the dupes to show in the Names column. Hold down the z key as you select the contacts you want to combine. Then choose Card Merge Cards. Review the resulting card to delete any unwanted information.

Printing address lists and labels

Address Book can print address lists and mailing labels from its contacts database. You can format them to look just right for your purposes using Address Book’s sophisticated Print dialog.

To print an address list:

Choose File Print. Address Book’s Print dialog opens as shown in Figure 18-31.

Figure 18-31: The Address Book print dialog, set to the Layout panel.
From the Style pop-up menu, choose List.
In the Attributes window, select the fields you want to see listed.

To print a mailing label:

Choose File Print. Address Book’s Print dialog opens.
From the Style pop-up menu, choose Mailing Labels.
Click Layout.
From the Page pop-up menu, choose a type of label.
Choose Define Custom from the Page pop-up menu to set up how many labels to print on a page, the page margins, and the gutter space between labels.
From the Address pop-up menu, choose the type of address.
From the Sorting pop-up menu, choose Last Name or Postal Code to sort the labels based on one or the other.
Use the checkboxes to Print Country and Except My Country, or leave them empty.
If you want, change the font, color, and drag any image you want to print on the label to the well.
As you make changes, the print preview on the left shows what the labels will look like.
Select the number of copies and click Print.

Backing up Address Book

Once you start using Address Book, the information it contains becomes very valuable. It’s a good idea to make frequent backups, which can be done with Address Book’s Back Up Database command.

To create a backup of Address Book information:

Choose File Back Up Database. A location selection sheet drops down.
Choose a location for the backup file.
Click Save. The backup file appears as a document icon with the Address Book icon and the acronym ABBU, for Address Book Back Up.

To restore your Address Book information from a backup file:

Choose File Revert to Database Backup. A Panther navigation sheet will drop down.
Navigate to the desired backup file.
Click Open. An alert appears: Reverting will cause your current database to be overwritten. Note that the operation cannot be undone.
Click OK.

Also note that the Revert operation can be undone, in effect, if you first make a backup file; then you can revert to that file if you want to undo the previous revert.

If you have a .Mac account, you can use iSync to backup your Address Book to your iDisk. For more information, see the iSync section of this Chapter.

Address Book Tips

Using the Address Book is an easy way to manage your contact information. The following list provides you with tips on using the Address Book feature.

You can tell if a contact is currently available via iChat. A circle next to the contact’s picture indicates their status; if the circle is green, they are available. Click the circle to invite the contact to a chat.
If a contact has a .Mac account name email address, there is a easy way to send them an email, start an iChat, open their Public Folder on their iDisk, visit their HomePage, or send them a vCard, right from their address card. Click the field label (for example, home or work) next to the .Mac email address. The resulting pop-up menu will offer the choices Send Email, iChat, Visit HomePage, Open iDisk, or Send Update. Choose what you would like to do, and the appropriate application will be launched, taking you right to what you wanted to do.
Copy an address as a mailing label to paste into another application by clicking on the address field label and choosing Copy Mailing Label from the pop-up menu.
Get a map showing an address’s location (if you are connected to the Internet) by clicking on the address field label and choosing Map Of from the pop-up menu.
Keep track of birthdays by choosing Card Add Field Birthday. To track anniversaries or other important dates, choose Card Add Field Dates.
If a contact has more than one instant messaging account, you can add them all to their address card. Click the Edit button, then add the first address. Select the type of address from the pop-up menu to the right of the address. Click the green add button to add another address. Repeat until all the addresses are entered, and then click the Edit button to view the results; next to each address, the name of the service appears in parentheses.