Customizing the contacts order in the Address Book

[murk]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel Email Client: pop My address book has always had my business partner's email at the top, both in the main Address Book view and when I select a name from the Address Book in New Message (her first and last name start with letters in the middle of the alphabet). If I click on the Name field in either view, the names are not in alphabetical order either by first name or last name. It "appears" to be in the order I last updated the person's info in the Address Book. Essentially I want to keep the order I had reached (apparently inadvertently) with my most important contacts at the top, but I noticed that now recent changes to other names in the list have pushed them to the top.

Is there a simple way to create a custom order in the list? I do NOT want alphabetical by last name or first name.

 

[Diane Ross]

Is there a simple way to create a custom order in the list? I do NOT want
alphabetical by last name or first name.

Entourage will sort by the column you have selected. There is no custom
order to view.

Entourage 2008 has the ability to show First Name and Last Name. see

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

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://tinyurl.com/bzcrjy> <-- Entourage mailing list
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/entouragehelp>

 

[murk]

Thanks for the reply but, as I pointed out in my earlier post, CURRENTLY when I sort by NAME there is no apparent order - I'm guessing it's by the date the contact was created or modified - this is based on my observation of two recent updates I did to my contacts - they both are now at the top of list.

I understand how to insert and sort by First Name and Last Name but I don't want that. I would like to get back my old order, which had a few of my most important contacts at the top of the list even though the names started with letters in the middle of the alphabet.

As I think about this, I suspect that because I have used Entourage through several major updates of Microsoft Office over the past decade or so, at some point Entourage allowed a different ordering than what is allowed now and when I imported my old address book, the contacts were imported in the old order.

One last observation: if I sort by another column, like Email Address or Categories, everything is sorted alphabetically by either email address or category name, as I would expect. But if I click on Name or Contact Type, the list is sorted in this &quot;other&quot; order which is NOT alphabetical. What order is it?

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Thanks for the reply but, as I pointed out in my earlier post, CURRENTLY
when I sort by NAME there is no apparent order - I'm guessing it's by
the date the contact was created or modified - this is based on my
observation of two recent updates I did to my contacts - they both are
now at the top of list.

When you sort using the "Name" column, names are displayed as "First
Last" but sorted by "Last" then common last names are sub-sorted by
"First". Special characters, blank spaces and numbers are sorted before
letters.

I understand how to insert and sort by First Name and Last Name but I
don't want that. I would like to get back my old order, which had a few
of my most important contacts at the top of the list even though the
names started with letters in the middle of the alphabet.

As Diane stated, Entourage does not support custom ordering. It does,
however, have a "Last Correspondence" column that you can add and then
click to sort. This will sort messages by the last message you've sent
or received. Clicking the column header multiple times will alternately
sort ascending to descending.

As I think about this, I suspect that because I have used Entourage
through several major updates of Microsoft Office over the past decade
or so, at some point Entourage allowed a different ordering than what is
allowed now and when I imported my old address book, the contacts were
imported in the old order.

Unlikely. Again, Entourage has never supported custom ordering of
contacts. You can only sort by the column headers provided.

One last observation: if I sort by another column, like Email Address or
Categories, everything is sorted alphabetically by either email address
or category name, as I would expect. But if I click on Name or Contact
Type, the list is sorted in this "other" order which is NOT
alphabetical. What order is it?

Sorted and displayed as I described above.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>