Chapter 11
Address Book
Address Book (Figure 11–1) is Mac OS X's primary tool for managing contact information. It allows you to add contact information about individuals and organizations, create groups, and even access networked directory services.
The latest version of Address Book that ships with Lion has received an entirely new look vs. previous versions. Instead of the old three-column view, Address Book in Lion provides a new book-like interface with two primary views: a List and Card view (Figure 11–1) and a Groups view (Figure 11–2).
Figure 11–1. The Address Book List and Card view shows a list of all the contacts in a group on the left side and details for the selected contact on the right.
Figure 11–2. The Address Book Groups view shows a list of all your groups and shared directories on the left side and a list of contacts in the selected group on the right.
TIP: By default, Address Book sorts contacts by first name. You can change how the contacts are sorted and displayed on the General tab of Address Book's preferences. (I generally prefer my contacts to be sorted by last name, but displayed first name first.)
NOTE: Address Book also has a Card Only view for simply viewing a single contacts information at a time.
Adding and Editing Contacts
You can get new contacts into Address Book in a few ways. The most common are importing or syncing them from another device or file, using data detectors in Mail, and entering them manually.
If you have contacts stored on another Apple device (such as an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch), you can sync your existing contacts using iCloud (covered in Chapter 15) or when you sync your device using iTunes (covered back in Chapter 7).
If you use an Exchange server (Exchange 2007 or later) for your e-mail, when you set up that account in Mail you were given the option to set up Contacts and Calendars at the same time. If you selected Contacts at that time, your Exchange contacts should already show up as a separate group in your Group view.
The latest version of Address Book also allows you to sync your Google and Yahoo contacts with Address Book. You can add these accounts from the Accounts tab in the Address Book preferences (Figure 11–3). To use this feature, simply select the appropriate check box, and fill in the account information from the resulting dialog box.
Figure 11–3. From the Accounts tab in the Address Book preferences, you can choose to sync your contacts with Google or Yahoo.
NOTE: When you sync your contacts with other systems, some information may be lost on the other end. For example, when you sync your contacts with a Google account, it will sync all of your local contacts into a singe My Contacts group rather than any groups you have set up on your Mac.
SETTING UP YOUR GOOGLE AND YAHOO ACCOUNTS FROM SAFARI
If you usually check you Gmail or Yahoo mail from Safari, the first time you try to check it in Lion, you may get a little surprise. A dialog box will pop up in Safari (Figure 11–4) asking you if you would like to use Mail, iCal, and iChat with the account you're checking. If you'd like to go ahead and do this, simply click the Add Account button, and the dialog will change, asking you which apps you'd like to use with this account (Figure 11–5). Once you select the apps you'd like to use and click the OK button, the account will be set up and ready to go.
Figure 11–4. The first time you try to check your Yahoo or Gmail e-mail from Safari, you will be asked if you'd like to set up that account so it will be accessible from Mail, iCal, and iChat.
Figure 11–5. If you choose to add the account, you will be asked which apps you'd like to set up the account to use.
One important app that is not automatically configured this way is Address Book, to sync your Contacts from your Gmail or Yahoo account to your Address Book, you will need to manually select that option as detailed above.
You can also import contacts from various files, including vCards (which provide a standard way of sharing contact information among many contact management clients), LDIF files (which provide a standard format for exchanging LDAP data), and even comma-separated value (CSV) or tab-delimited text files. Finally, you can also import contact data from Address Book archive files. Any of these can be imported using File > Import... on the menu bar; additionally, you can drag vCard files into Address Book to import them, or simply double-click them in the Finder, provided that Address Book is the default application for dealing with vCards. (If you drag a contact from Address Book, it will be exported as a vCard.)
If you need to add a new contact from scratch, either click the + button at the bottom of the Name column, or select File > New Card from the menu (Command-N). This will create a new empty contact card ready to edit in the card view area (Figure 11–6).
NOTE:When you add a new card, it will be added to the currently selected group. If no group is selected, the card will only be visible from the All Contacts group.
NOTE:The card view area has two modes: an edit mode and a view mode. By default, Address Book opens with cards in view mode, which will hide empty fields and restrict the editing of the contact fields (clicking a field name in view mode will generally open a menu with options pertaining to the type of field it represents). Address Book will switch to edit mode when you create a new contact. In edit mode, clicking a field will select it for editing; additionally, all default template fields will be visible even if they are empty, and you will be able to add new fields. To toggle between the modes, click the Edit|Done button beneath the card view area.
Figure 11–6. Address Book with a new contact card waiting to be filled in
When the new card is created, it will reveal all the fields set up in the template. To fill in a field, simply click the gray text describing the field, and type the proper information. Many fields include a drop-down list that describes the nature of the field—generally whether the information is associated with home or work and other descriptive information that can help differentiate between similar information. To delete an entry in edit mode, just click the red “–” button to the left of the field. When you add fields in edit mode, a blank field will be added as you fill in preceding fields.
If you are looking for a specific field that is currently not listed on the card, you can add a number of fields from the Card > Add Field menu. This includes fields such as birthdays and other dates (which can be added to iCal) and other common contact fields.
If you find you are consistently adding information fields that are available but aren't listed in the default contact card template, then you can change the card template on the Template tab of Address Book's preferences.
If you'd like to associate an image with a contact, you can drag an image into the image field of a contact (the gray shadow of a head next to the name).
If the contact is primarily a business or organization, selecting the Company option will list the company name in the Name column rather than the person's name associated with the card (if there is one).
TIP: While Address Book has a lot of predefined fields, including a number of IM fields that when you click them will automatically open an iChat window, there is no field for Skype. While you can create a custom Skype field, by default it doesn't do anything when you click it. To work around this, create your custom Skype field as a URL and then prefix the contact's Skype ID with “skype:” (e.g., “skype:sdmeyers”). This will create a link that will open up the contact in Skype if Skype is installed on your Mac.
Setting Up Your Own Card
One special card in the Address Book is the card that represents you and your information. This information is used for all sorts of things in the system and various applications, so it's good to keep it up to date. If you'd like to set a different card, for whatever reason, as My Card, select the desired contact and click Card > Make This My Card from the menu.
Creating Groups
You might want to create contact groups for several reasons: to create mailing lists, to make it easier to find particular contacts, or to just keep things organized. To create a group, just click the + button under the Group list in the Groups view, and a new group will be created. To add contacts to the group, you can drag existing contacts from the Contacts page to the group item on the Group page, or you can create new contacts from within the group.
Once you create the group, you can right-click the group name to export the vCards of the group, send an e-mail to each member of the group, or edit the group distribution list, which determines which e-mail addresses are used when you send a group e-mail.
Sharing Contacts
Address Book allows you to share your contacts with specific people through iCloud. To enable this feature, you must turn on sharing on the Accounts tab of Address Book's preferences (click “Share your address book” under the Sharing tab), and then you must select which other iCloud members you are allowing to view (and optionally edit) your contacts.
Viewing Shared Contact Lists
If you have permission to view a shared Address Book through iCloud, select File > Subscribe to Address Book from the menu, and then enter the iCloud member information of the person whose Address Book you'd like to share. If you have permission to view these contacts, then they will show up as a group in your Address Book.
Besides allowing iCloud address sharing, Address Book can also display contact information being shared through CardDAV, LDAP, Yahoo, and Exchange, provided you have access to these services. You can add these accounts on the Address Book preferences Accounts tab (Figure 11–3). Under the accounts list, click the + button to add a new account, which will bring up a dialog that will walk you through configuring you account.
NOTE:Names for directory services will appear only in response to a search string (occasionally a very specific search string). Ideally, if you find you need to contact certain people listed in a directory service often, drag their information from the directory service section into a group or the All item to add that person to your local address book.
Printing Labels and Envelopes
One nice feature of Address Book is the ability to print labels or envelopes for a specific contact or group of contacts. To find this feature, select the contact or group you want to print labels or envelopes for, and then select File> Print (Command-P).
Make sure to expand the Print dialog (Figure 11–7), and select Address Book from the Print Options menu. This reveals a number of options, not only to print labels and envelopes, but also to print nicely formatted contact lists or small Address Book pages.
Figure 11–7. Address Book has print options that automatically print envelopes, labels, and contact lists.
Summary
Address Book is an easy-to-use contact management application with enough features for most users. There are of course a number of more powerful contact management and CRM applications available to Mac users, but for the majority of people Address Book works well.
Next we will cover iCal, which does for calendaring what Address Book does for contact management.