Alphabetical Order in Address Book

[bobpenberthy]

Hello,

I have searched and read the other post's about this topic, but they
really don't seem to answer the real question and problem.

When I click on the "names" column to have my address book list out in
alphabetical order it doesn't work. There really seems to be no
particular order at all. I know that some have said that it's listed
in order by last name, but looks out of order because the first name
shows first, but this isn't the case.

There's no particular order at all. I can't see any common
denominator that would lead me to even speculate what the program is
basing the order on. It is almost as if the program is choosing to
order the list based on some sort of phantom column that isn't
showing.

As with others experiencing the same problem, when I sort the
"company" column it works fine. In that, the companies are in order,
but the personal contacts are still in no logical order at all. But
when I sort by clicking the "name" column, even the companies go out
of order. It just gets all jumbled up.

It really makes no sense at all and I have to believe that this isn't
the way it should work.

I have checked and rechecked how I have my personal contacts set up.
Most of them are pretty basic...first name, last name with an email
address or phone number. The first name is in the right box and the
last name is in the right box. Seems pretty simple, but for some
reason the program can't seem to get it done.

Any research, insight, or solution is greatly appreciated. I have to
believe that the answer is out there somewhere without me having to
add a script or do other modifications to the program.

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Steve Ball]

[email protected]:

Hello,

I have searched and read the other post's about this topic, but they
really don't seem to answer the real question and problem.

When I click on the "names" column to have my address book list out in
alphabetical order it doesn't work. There really seems to be no
particular order at all. I know that some have said that it's listed
in order by last name, but looks out of order because the first name
shows first, but this isn't the case.

There's no particular order at all. I can't see any common
denominator that would lead me to even speculate what the program is
basing the order on. It is almost as if the program is choosing to
order the list based on some sort of phantom column that isn't
showing.

As with others experiencing the same problem, when I sort the
"company" column it works fine. In that, the companies are in order,
but the personal contacts are still in no logical order at all. But
when I sort by clicking the "name" column, even the companies go out
of order. It just gets all jumbled up.

It really makes no sense at all and I have to believe that this isn't
the way it should work.

I have checked and rechecked how I have my personal contacts set up.
Most of them are pretty basic...first name, last name with an email
address or phone number. The first name is in the right box and the
last name is in the right box. Seems pretty simple, but for some
reason the program can't seem to get it done.

The address book sorts by last name but displays first name first. However,
contacts with a 'Company' name put no 'First' or 'Last' names are
interleaved into this list in some weird, non-obvious way (based on, I
think, the order in which they were added to the database). A workaround is
to copy the 'Company' name of all contacts which don't have a person
attached to them into the 'Last' name field.

Please report this less-than-optimal behaviour to MS.

HTH,
Steve = : ^ )

 

[bobpenberthy]

"> The address book sorts by last name but displays first name first."

Sorry, but as I stated in my intial post, my contacts aren't being
sorted by last name and displayed by first name. I had seen other
posts that say this is what's happening, but in my case this isn't
true.

As far as making any adjustments to the company listing, there really
isn't a need for that. As I stated in my intial post, the company
field sorts in alphabetical order without any trouble.

Thanks,

 

[Mickey Stevens]

"> The address book sorts by last name but displays first name first."

Sorry, but as I stated in my intial post, my contacts aren't being
sorted by last name and displayed by first name. I had seen other
posts that say this is what's happening, but in my case this isn't
true.

As far as making any adjustments to the company listing, there really
isn't a need for that. As I stated in my intial post, the company
field sorts in alphabetical order without any trouble.

Try rebuilding the database.

In Entourage 2004, you must launch the Microsoft Database Utility.
1. Launch Entourage, holding down the ³Option² key. Or, launch the
Database Utility separately; it is located in HD/Applications/Microsoft
Office 2004/Office/.
2. If you are prompted, allow the Database Utility to quit open Office
applications.
3. Once the Database Utility is open, select your identity from the list at
the top.
4. Click the ³Rebuild Database² button, and click ³Continue.²

In Entourage X, first go to Entourage > Turn Off Office Notifications. Now,
quit Entourage, and then restart Entourage holding down the Option key.
When the Rebuild dialog box comes up, choose to do a Typical Rebuild. If
that does not fix the problem, repeat the procedure, instead opting to do
the Advanced Rebuild.

In Entourage 2001, quit Entourage, and then restart Entourage holding down
the Option key. When the Rebuild dialog box comes up, choose to do a
Typical Rebuild. If that does not fix the problem, repeat the procedure,
instead opting to do the Advanced Rebuild.

 

[Richard Cawdell]

I see exactly this problem as well. Any suggestions gratefully received.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Entourage seems to have a problem with sorting contacts which, even though
it was supposed to have been fixed with the 11.3 update, is still annoying
some users, myself included. The first thing to do is to make sure that
Entourage is up-to-date; once you're running the latest version (11.3.6),
see if the problem is still happening.

If it is, can you tell me if

a) you are using Sync Services to synchronise data with Apple's Address Book
and you occasionally make changes to a contact in Address Book (instead of
Entourage)?

b) the contacts are not displayed at random, but rather in chronological
order, i.e. the most recently modified contact is on top of the list?

Any details that help narrow down the issue are important so we can inform
Microsoft about it.

I see exactly this problem as well. Any suggestions gratefully received.

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Michel Bintener]

Entourage seems to have a problem with sorting contacts which, even though
it was supposed to have been fixed with the 11.3 update, is still annoying
some users, myself included. The first thing to do is to make sure that
Entourage is up-to-date; once you're running the latest version (11.3.6),
see if the problem is still happening.

If it is, can you tell me if

a) you are using Sync Services to synchronise data with Apple's Address Book
and you occasionally make changes to a contact in Address Book (instead of
Entourage)?

b) the contacts are not displayed at random, but rather in chronological
order, i.e. the most recently modified contact is on top of the list?

Any details that help narrow down the issue are important so we can inform
Microsoft about it.

Oh, and one more thing:

Are the contacts regular contacts, i.e. do they have first and last names,
or do they only have a company name (and no first and last name)?

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Kasra Shokravi]

Oh, and one more thing:

Are the contacts regular contacts, i.e. do they have first and last names,
or do they only have a company name (and no first and last name)?

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

my problem is actually the opposite, I have no problem with entourage
displaying my contacts in alphabetical order according to their first name,
but what I want to do, for the purpose of syncing entourage with my phone
(using a third party program), is have entourage display my contacts
alphabetically according to their first name rather than last

 

[Gary L. Estler]

I recently "upgraded" to Entourage 2008 and also had a problem with the order in which the entries to my Address Book were displayed. I eventually realized that unlike earlier versions, 2008 requires you to define a Last Name field and a separate First Name field to be able to sequence the list by one or the other. I was successful in doing that and now my Address Book is in the order I want. However, when I go to send a new message and click on the address field, the pop-up of my address book only shows "Name" and the list is strangely sequenced like some of the previous posters reported. Is there any way to fix this?

 

[Robin Haber]

Entourage seems to have a problem with sorting contacts which, even though
it was supposed to have been fixed with the 11.3 update, is still annoying
some users, myself included. The first thing to do is to make sure that
Entourage is up-to-date; once you're running the latest version (11.3.6),
see if the problem is still happening.

If it is, can you tell me if

a) you are using Sync Services to synchronise data with Apple's Address Book
and you occasionally make changes to a contact in Address Book (instead of
Entourage)?

b) the contacts are not displayed at random, but rather in chronological
order, i.e. the most recently modified contact is on top of the list?

Any details that help narrow down the issue are important so we can inform
Microsoft about it.

Oh, and one more thing:

Are the contacts regular contacts, i.e. do they have first and last names,
or do they only have a company name (and no first and last name)?

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***
I just recently got my Mac and am having the same problem - i.e. that my Entourage contacts are not completely in alphabetical order. I'm trying to clean up my contacts because they didn't all transfer properly from Outlook. There's no pattern regarding which contacts are not in alphabetical order. I have Entourage 2008, version 12.0.1. I have not used Sync Services to synchronize with Apples's address book and I always add contacts to Entourage and then add them to Address Book, not visa versa. The contacts are not in chronological order (i.e. - most recently modified first). The regular contacts so far seem to be in alphabetical order (I haven't finished cleaning them up yet from the transfer from my PC. The company contacts are before the personal contacts, but they are not in alphabetical order. I don't care about having the company contacts before the personal contacts, so would it be better to enter the company name in the last name field so that both companies and people would be alphabetized together (assuming that the personal contacts remain properly alphabetized). Would the home/work info be mixed up if I did this? In addition, I want to get a Blackberry and I'm concerned about sync issues. Do you have any advice about syncing between Entourage and a Blackberry? Thank you.
[/QUOTE]

 

[Diane Ross]

I just recently got my Mac and am having the same problem - i.e. that my
Entourage contacts are not completely in alphabetical order. I'm trying to
clean up my contacts because they didn't all transfer properly from Outlook.
There's no pattern regarding which contacts are not in alphabetical order. I
have Entourage 2008, version 12.0.1. I have not used Sync Services to
synchronize with Apples's address book and I always add contacts to Entourage
and then add them to Address Book, not visa versa. The contacts are not in
chronological order (i.e. - most recently modified first).

On the Mac you can toggle the view by column for example a/z or z/a, but
there is no way to view chronological order for contacts. You might be able
to do with a Spotlight search in Entourage. Try this.

Enter "a" in the search field
Then click on the plus button to see the modify options. Select date
modified --> make selection

I'm not sure I get why you are wanting to sort by when they were modified.
This has never come up before.

The regular
contacts so far seem to be in alphabetical order (I haven't finished cleaning
them up yet from the transfer from my PC. The company contacts are before the
personal contacts, but they are not in alphabetical order. I don't care about
having the company contacts before the personal contacts, so would it be
better to enter the company name in the last name field so that both companies
and people would be alphabetized together (assuming that the personal contacts
remain properly alphabetized). Would the home/work info be mixed up if I did
this? In addition, I want to get a Blackberry and I'm concerned about sync
issues. Do you have any advice about syncing between Entourage and a
Blackberry? Thank you.

Just to go over some basics. In Entourage under View --> Columns you can
add/remove columns. Clicking on the column head sort by that column. This
way you can sort on Company column to view all contacts in that company
together. You can use categories to assign to contacts also and sort by
category. Categories are like tags.

BTW, there is a column "Last Correspondence" that is useful for finding old
contacts to weed out.

You can see Last Name, First Name Columns in Entourage 2008

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/get_started/column_view.html>

Nicknames are never seen in the message. You can use terms like dingbat and
they will never know. If you had a lot of Bobs in your Address Book, you
could use nicknames like workbob, friendbob, mybob, oldbob etc.

As far as Blackberry, I'll have to leave that to someone else. Just ask
again with Blackberry in the subject to get the Blackberry users attention.

Sync Services are a bit flakey right now. Always have a backup of your data.
Use the remove duplicate scripts to help clean up dups.

To get rid of duplicates use one of the scripts to remove duplicates.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/duplicates.html>

Let me know if this help or if you need further help.