Entourage Address Book Sorting

[united9198]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel
Email Client: pop

After upgrading to Office Mac 2008, my Entourage address book does not seem to work correctly. I have lots of contacts, both personal and business. The business contacts have a business name. When I sort the list by business column, the individuals appear at the top of the list followed by the business contacts. The problem is that the business contacts are not sorted alphabetically. They are shown in two groups each of which is sorted alphabetically. The A-C businesses are sorted below the D-Z businesses. I can see nothing that would make it sort that way and can find no way to sort differently.

 

[Diane Ross]

After upgrading to Office Mac 2008, my Entourage address book does not seem to
work correctly. I have lots of contacts, both personal and business. The
business contacts have a business name. When I sort the list by business
column, the individuals appear at the top of the list followed by the business
contacts. The problem is that the business contacts are not sorted
alphabetically. They are shown in two groups each of which is sorted
alphabetically. The A-C businesses are sorted below the D-Z businesses. I can
see nothing that would make it sort that way and can find no way to sort
differently.

Are you sorting by the "company" column? Have you entered the name of the
company in the Name & Email tab? Entourage 2008 just like Entourage 2004 in
the "name" column appears to sort incorrectly. The Address Book displays the
names as FirstName LastName, but they are sorted in alphabetical order by
LAST name, not first name.

You can get rid of this behavior in Entourage 2008 with the new columns,
Last Name, First Name.

When you are in the Address Book view, select under View in the Menu bar,
select Columns then select First Name, Last Name. You can deselect Name.
Once you add new columns you can reorder by dragging on the top bar. See
screenshot:

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

 

[united9198]

Thanks for your reply. Im am sorting my list by "company" column. I have entered the company name in the Name and Email tab. I am not sure what your point is regarding the Last Name/First Name columns. If I am sorting by the company column, all the individuals with no company name should sort to the top followed by the companies in alphabetical order. The problem is that the companies are not sorting in alpha order. They are sorting with the N through Z first followed by the A through M companies. There are a couple of odd ball listings right at the top, but mainly sorting to two groups. (not identified as such)

 

[Diane Ross]

Thanks for your reply. Im am sorting my list by "company" column. I have
entered the company name in the Name and Email tab. I am not sure what your
point is regarding the Last Name/First Name columns. If I am sorting by the
company column, all the individuals with no company name should sort to the
top followed by the companies in alphabetical order. The problem is that the
companies are not sorting in alpha order. They are sorting with the N through
Z first followed by the A through M companies. There are a couple of odd ball
listings right at the top, but mainly sorting to two groups. (not identified
as such)

You can toggle A-Z at the top of each column. Click the little triangle.

 

[united9198]

I understand that clicking the triangle will toggle the A-Z listing. My problem is that my list is not sorted A-Z. Half the list is sorted N through Z and the other half A through M. Clicking the triangle does reverse that, but it does not combine the two groups.

 

[Diane Ross]

I understand that clicking the triangle will toggle the A-Z listing. My
problem is that my list is not sorted A-Z. Half the list is sorted N through Z
and the other half A through M. Clicking the triangle does reverse that, but
it does not combine the two groups.

I'm having trouble visualizing or guessing at how this is happening. Could
you send me a screenshot off list? An export of your Address Book as
Entourage archive (.rge) would help to if I need to send this to the
developers.

Send me an email:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/support_options/email.html>

 

[William Root]

I am having basically the same problem. Whenever I sort on Company name it breaks my list of about 1000 contacts into 3 sections: the first starts with contacts that have no company name and continues in alphabetical order to companies that start with Z but this includes only about half my contacts; following this section, a different subset of contacts is listed starting with N through Z, then a separate subset of contacts follows that starts with A and ends with M. It is very frustrating, because I have to make sure I look at each subsection when I trying to find a contact by Company name!

 

[William Root]

I found a way to fix your problem. I was having the same issues. I exported all my contacts into an archive, deleted all the contacts and then imported all the contacts from the archive I just created. It worked. Now I can sort on Company Name and it includes all my contacts. Hopefully nothing else was messed up in the process.

Good luck.