Macs All-in-One for Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter VII.1. Managing Contacts with Address Book

In This Chapter

• Setting up Address Book

• Organizing names in groups

• Archiving and printing your Address Book

• Importing and exporting contacts

Most people write down important names and contact information in an address book, but your Mac comes with an electronic version called (surprise!) Address Book. Besides storing contact names and related contact information, the Address Book also connects with other programs so that you can click someone's e-mail address and immediately write and send a message to that person.

The Mac Address Book lets you search through stored contacts and print them as mailing labels or lists, which is impossible to do with a paper address book. Therefore, the next time you need to store contacts and contact information, you'll find it much easier to store this data in the Address Book on your Mac.

Setting Up Address Book

The Address Book acts like a giant Rolodex file that can hold contact cards and contact information including e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and postal addresses in separate windows referred to as contact cards. When you save information about a person on a card, you can find that information again.

Designing a template

Each time you add a contact, the Address Book displays blank fields, with each field representing information to fill in about that person, such as company, first and last name, title, and e-mail address. You might not want or need to store all that information about everyone, ...