Comments on: iCal and Address Book: Under Appreciated (?)

By: Rocco

Rocco — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:49:26 +0000

I am having issues printing out my tasks in “list” view. For some reason the “show URL” menu when i get info suddednly has mail info which shows up in the list view and adds to my tasks below eacj task? I had re-entered all tasks to clear them, but mailto code popped back in? I did not have auto email retrieval checked in iCal prefs. Any help??

By: Barry

Barry — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:00:07 +0000

I figured out a simple low tech solution for the company name AND person’s name problem.
Simply duplicate the person’s name as the first line
in the address field you will use to print envelopes and labels and let AddressBook print using the company name. Voila, you get both. Stupid work around, but it works, and you only have to set it up once per contact.
I hope that Apple adds increased functionality to the AddressBook and iCal in Leopard. They are great resources, just a bit underpowered.

By: Elinore

Elinore — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 04:06:35 +0000

I have many birthdays entered in Address Book but most of them do not show up in iCal despite enabling. There must be some bug. I just upgraded to a MacBook Pro with the latest OS.

By: Jared

Jared — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 03:43:40 +0000

iCal and Address Book are awsome! I don’t know how I could live without them. I look foward to the additional intergration with mail in leopard.

By: Rita

Rita — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 21:53:51 +0000

I have been adding birthdays to Address Book so it will add to iCal. It has worked fairly well with two exceptions. Both are September birthdays and I either entered them as August or the computer entered them as August. But, aside from that, I have tried several times to correct the error, but it REFUSES. I have tried the edit button, the minus sign next to the birthday field and even deleted the whole card. But when I typed in the info for the new card with the September birthday, the Address book CHANGED it to AUGUST again. ???????

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:39:04 +0000

Allen I tried your solution to add files to Address Book using the URL slots, but it didn’t work – I created a .rtf text document, placed it in user/documents, copied the file path with FilePathToClip CM (the one you mentioned wasn’t to be found), then pasted the file path into a URL in Address Book. Instead of booting TextEdit, it booted Safari, which said: “Safari couldn’t open the document …/user/abc.rtf because it couldn’t connect to the server “localhost” Can you give me some more advice, as I really want to lick the problem of attaching files to Address Book – I miss that from when I used to use Entourage, and I think it is a really great thing that Apple should add to Address Book. Thanks :)

By: Klaus

Klaus — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 21:33:55 +0000

I looked further into the company label issue and found some hints on the Apple Support site, in the discussion forums.
It seems this feature does NOT exist in Address Book and there is no script/hack etc that can turn this on within Address Book.

The only proposed solution are additional tools such as “Address Book Reports” (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18672) or SnailMail (http://nixanz.com/products/snailmail/README.html). I’m about to try those two and when I know more I’ll post another short report.

However, this really seems to be a missing feature in Address Book and lot of people complained on the Apple Discussion site about it. Hopefully Apple will fix this soon.

By: Lewis

Lewis — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 23:16:24 +0000

Yes, listen to Klaus!
There must be someone with a hack that will allow us to turn on the name & business when printing a label! Still no answer from the void. . .

By: Klaus

Klaus — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 22:41:29 +0000

Did some answer the question from Lewis (October 15th 2005) about the address book lable printing and the missing company name? I have the same problem and this is a real setback with Address Book. Great tool otherwise but this is a true problem. If someone knows anything, please post anything on this topics.

By: Allen

Allen — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:18:27 +0000

Ok, I just confirmed the earlier note… yes, using say “snag path” CM, you can snag file:// paths, then paste those into address book, and ical… if you leave a file off ( just use a folder), you could keep a contact related folder say in ~/documents/contactfolders/Steve/ as an example… a file://machd/../documents/contactfolders/Steve/ type url will open the folder for you in the finder… alternatively, you can use any file whose extension the system understands already (knows which helper apps to use).

Another tip: I place my mission statement into the info section of the iCal calendar. I have each calendar separated by my “roles” vis-a-vis Stephen Covey… and each role has a mission statement that helps me to stay on task while working on my scheduling etc. Quick way to review the statement before the day begins as well…

To get more space, use option-enters to get line breaks, which will help separate out items in the calendar info section…

By: Allen

Allen — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:56:29 +0000

t- I believe the key to your thought is the URL fields in Addressbook (and ical as well).

For starters, try dropping an .rtf file there and see what happens… (for me the file://…. shows up.) If you can get that type of format for any file on your computer (there are CM plugins that do that etc.), then you can paste directly into those panes and then just click on the file and it will open with its corresponding program. I’m working on just that right now… haven’t fully implemented that in my work yet, but working on it.

Try it out, see if that solves the problem. :)

By: t

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 17:59:16 +0000

I use Address book at work most of the day and need help. I would like to attach files to contacts in address book. For example if I have a PDF calalog from a company I want to look up the company name in address book then see the PDF attachment. I also need to do this with word files, pictures, and really anytype of file. Any suggestions?

By: Lewis

Lewis — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 16:54:50 +0000

In regard to the Address Book, has anyone been able to make the address labels work? Apple does not know how after countless hours spent talking to AppleCare. Here is the problem. Let’s say you have “Bob Smith” who works at “ABC, Inc.,”. If you set the labels to print the work address, it will say the name “Bob Smith” but will not list his company, but will list his work address. There seems no way to turn on name and company at the same time. It has rendered this useless for small business owners to make mailing lists! However, here is the rub, if you go into the address book proper and click on the work address and “copy mailing label,” it will paste name, company and address properly! Help!

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 07:22:34 +0000

Goods news is that Tiger (X.4) will automatically sync birthdays between iCal and Address Book. About time!

By: The Apple Blog » FOLLOW-UP: Did iCal Solve All My Problems?

The Apple Blog » FOLLOW-UP: Did iCal Solve All My Problems? — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 22:23:18 +0000

[...] Recently I posted about iCal and Address Book, and my suspicion that they were a couple of unsung heroes amongst the OS X-included apps. As [...]

By: nick santilli

nick santilli — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 17:18:06 +0000

Pale -
that sounds really cool! I’m focusing more on iCal at the moment, and plan to update (heavily) my address book shortly. when I do that I’ll definitely check out the iCal Birthday Shifter.

Thanks for the tip!

By: Paleobiology

Paleobiology — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:49:32 +0000

I recommend an app called “iCal Birthday Shifter” Sounds stupid, but it lets you keep track of birthdays in address book easily in iCal. Just run it and it puts all your contact’s birthdays in iCal.

http://www.scotlandsoftware.com/products/icalshifter/index.html

By: nick santilli

nick santilli — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 18:18:41 +0000

Aaron – thx, yeah, i’ve actually used that a few times.

only reason I’ve already got contacts in my Address Book is that I’ve Sync’d it with my T610 cell phone…

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 17:54:38 +0000

QuickSilver for Mac has an Address Book plugin that allows you to look up address book entries on the fly. Click Open Apple-Space Bar and then start typing a name in your book, hit return and the card comes up.

By: D9

D9 — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:05:11 +0000

A suggested plug-in is MenuCalendarClock (mouthful, huh?!). Simply put, it replaces your menu bar clock and adds the functionality of a drop-down calendar and to-do list, illustrating your iCal events. It’s pretty customizable, even to the icon you place in the bar.

It’s nice to have the convenience of seeing your schedule quickly via the menu bar.