categorize contacts by last name first

J

jbgeorge

I'm sure that this has been addressed somewhere here but I can't find
a thread on it...is it possible in Entourage address book to be able
to sort contacts by *last name - first name*...much preferred over
sorting by first name
 
D

Dave Cortright

I'm sure that this has been addressed somewhere here but I can't find
a thread on it...is it possible in Entourage address book to be able
to sort contacts by *last name - first name*...much preferred over
sorting by first name
Click to expand...

It does sort by Last name but it displays by first name. There's no way to
change this, other than working around it by using Custom Fields to store
the display name of the contact and using a script to keep it in sync.
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

It does sort by Last name but it displays by first name. There's no way to
change this, other than working around it by using Custom Fields to store
the display name of the contact and using a script to keep it in sync.
Click to expand...

There's one other way. You can use a simple script to copy the last name
into the Nickname field. Then display the Nickname column in the Address
Book (View/Columns) and drag it to the left of the Name column.

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set allContacts to every contact
repeat with theContact in allContacts
tell theContact
set nickname to (get last name)
end tell
end repeat
activate
beep
display dialog "All done!"
end tell



Then in future, when making new contacts, always copy the last name into the
Nickname field.
--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
D

Dave Cortright

There's one other way. You can use a simple script to copy the last name
into the Nickname field. Then display the Nickname column in the Address
Book (View/Columns) and drag it to the left of the Name column.

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set allContacts to every contact
repeat with theContact in allContacts
tell theContact
set nickname to (get last name)
end tell
end repeat
activate
beep
display dialog "All done!"
end tell



Then in future, when making new contacts, always copy the last name into the
Nickname field.
Click to expand...

If you're going to go this route, you should also add the first name field
to the nickname field as well so that people with the same last name sort
correctly:

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set allContacts to every contact
repeat with theContact in allContacts
tell theContact
set nickname to ((get last name) & ", " & (get first name))
end tell
end repeat
activate
beep
display dialog "All done!"
end tell
 
S

Sonjay

If you're going to go this route, you should also add the first name field
to the nickname field as well so that people with the same last name sort
correctly:

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set allContacts to every contact
repeat with theContact in allContacts
tell theContact
set nickname to ((get last name) & ", " & (get first name))
end tell
end repeat
activate
beep
display dialog "All done!"
end tell
Click to expand...

This was so perfect, with one tiny modification, for what I wanted -- which
was to put the FirstName LastName fields in that order into the Nickname
field so that I can sort contacts alphabetically by *first* name.

I tried it, and it worked beautifully!

Now -- is there any way I could run another AppleScript to select just the
contacts that don't have a name (i.e., just businesses) and put the business
name into the nickname field? (And without messing up or overwriting the
nicknames I just got in there for real people?)
 
Top