How do I add a folder to the Address Book?

[Richard Cervenka]

After being a Windows user for years, I am a new Mac user and am now
using MS Office 2008 for the Mac, Home & Student Edition.

I really like Entourage but cannot figure a certain problem out.

Using O2M (Outlook2Mac), I successfully transferred all of my data
(mail, calendar events and contacts) from Outlook 2007 into Entourage
2008, My current Address Book contains all (close to 300) of my contact
entries. I want to create another folder with less than 25 contacts that
I regularly use to send email messages to in Entourage, so that when I
compose a new email message, I see only the contacts (less than 25) with
whom I regularly correspond. The problem is that I cannot figure out how
to create another folder in the Address Book to contain those regular
contacts. I do NOT want to create a group, as I do not always send
messages to all of my regular contacts. I created a Category containing
those 25 entries but there is no way to just call up those entries when
I compose a message.

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello Richard,

If you've already set the categories to distinguish the
25 entries in the contacts list from your other contacts,
you can use the quick filter feature in Entourage 2008 to
show only those entries and hide the rest.

1. In Contact view, go to the View menu, and make sure that the
menu says "Hide Quick Filter". If it says "Show Quick Filter",
select it to display the Quick Filter.
(The Quick Filter is the purple row above your contacts
containing two dropdown menus and an "X" arrow button.)
2. Change the first dropdown menu to read "Category is" and
select the category of the contacts you want to display.

If you want to send a message to all of the currently displayed
contacts that you have filtered, do a Ctrl+click or right-click
on the items, and select "New Message To".

Hope this helps.

Jeff

 

[Richard Cervenka]

Jeff,

Thanks for the info. I really appreciate the help.

That's a great way to display only my wanted contacts but is there no
way to make another folder inside the Address Book, containing only
those contact entries, instead of every contact in my Address Book, so
that when I'm composing a new message from the Mail screen (not the
Address Book screen), only those contacts would be visible to choose
from? It would make it much easier to select from a list of 25 when I
want to send a new message to only some people on my list.

Again, thanks for the reply and help.

Rich

 

[Adam Bailey]

That's a great way to display only my wanted contacts but is there no
way to make another folder inside the Address Book, containing only
those contact entries, instead of every contact in my Address Book, so
that when I'm composing a new message from the Mail screen (not the
Address Book screen), only those contacts would be visible to choose
from?

Categories will still do you this for you. You can also create an
Address Book Group and drag contacts into it.

 

[Richard Cervenka]

Categories will still do you this for you. You can also create an
Address Book Group and drag contacts into it.

Adam,

Could you please explain to me how Categories can be accessed from the
Mail screen? Jeff's suggestion works great for displaying only the
wanted contacts on the Address Book screen but how would I display only
the wanted Category contacts from the Mail screen when I, for instance,
want to forward a message to a group of my contacts from those 25 names
in my chosen Category?

Thanks for replying and for the help!

 

[Ed Kimball]

Jeff,

Thanks for the info. I really appreciate the help.

That's a great way to display only my wanted contacts but is there no
way to make another folder inside the Address Book, containing only
those contact entries, instead of every contact in my Address Book, so
that when I'm composing a new message from the Mail screen (not the
Address Book screen), only those contacts would be visible to choose
from? It would make it much easier to select from a list of 25 when I
want to send a new message to only some people on my list.

Again, thanks for the reply and help.

Rich

In the Address field of the Message, just start typing the names or email
addresses of the people you want to send the message too. Entourage will
quickly narrow the list to those whose names match what you've typed.

 

[Diane Ross]

Jeff's suggestion works great for displaying only the
wanted contacts on the Address Book screen but how would I display only
the wanted Category contacts from the Mail screen when I, for instance,
want to forward a message to a group of my contacts from those 25 names
in my chosen Category?

As Adam explained you need to create a Group. If you are trying to send to a
sublist of that group, you could try editing the message after the group
inserts the addresses or create a subgroup in the Address Book.

When you add a contact to a group, create a contact then assign them a
category for that group name, THEN drag that contact to the Group window.
Assign category ³Group² to the actual group itself. This helps when sorting
in the Address Book and for assigning names.

All group names should start with Group: name xxx.

If you can¹t remember the exact name of a group when addressing a message,
just start typing group and the autofill list will pop up with all the
groups to select from.

Entourage does not export groups. By assigning the group category to that
contact you can easily recreate your groups.

 

[Richard Cervenka]

Diane,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate all of the helpful people here
who have tried to help me out with this problem. Obviously, what I want
to accomplish is not possible.


Personal rant:

Am I the only person who has a problem believing that Microsoft couldn't
just give us the ability to create a subfolder in the Address Book,
instead of trying all of these workarounds? That's how it's done in
their Outlook product. What is so difficult in doing it in the Mac
version of Office 2008???

 

[Adam Bailey]

Am I the only person who has a problem believing that Microsoft couldn't
just give us the ability to create a subfolder in the Address Book,
instead of trying all of these workarounds? That's how it's done in
their Outlook product. What is so difficult in doing it in the Mac
version of Office 2008???

I still do not understand why putting contacts in folders instead of
categories/groups is any improvement?

In fact, usability studies find that many users don't understand folders
or the HFS. It would add a level of complexity that I think would be
harmful.

 

[Richard Cervenka]

I still do not understand why putting contacts in folders instead of
categories/groups is any improvement?

In fact, usability studies find that many users don't understand folders
or the HFS. It would add a level of complexity that I think would be
harmful.

Adam,

O.K., this is what I would like to happen:

When I'm composing or forwarding a mail message in Entourage (from the
Mail screen, of course), a box pops up listing ALL of the contacts in my
Address Book, allowing me to choose who to send the message to. Although
the top of this box lists "Address Book" and appears to allow you to
switch to another source, there is no way to develop another source. In
my case, I would like a subset of my Address Book, listing only the 25
or so people that I regularly communicate with, instead of all nearly
300 contacts in my Address Book. My problem is that, FROM THIS SCREEN,
there should be some way to list those 25 contacts that I want to see
listed. Using Categories does not help FROM THIS SCREEN, which makes any
other method addressing the message very inconvenient. If I could sort
all of my contacts from this screen, I could sort by Category and the
problem would be solved. But MS won't let me do this. What I'm saying is
that, in Outlook, MS enables the user to create a folder that could
contain those 25 contacts. In Entourage, there is no way that I can
figure out how to be able to choose from that list of 25 contacts.

That, in a nutshell, is the only reason that I am forced to use Mail
instead of Entourage as my primary mail client on my Mac. MS makes it
too difficult to address a mail message.

 

[Adam Bailey]

Adam,

O.K., this is what I would like to happen:

When I'm composing or forwarding a mail message in Entourage (from the
Mail screen, of course), a box pops up listing ALL of the contacts in my
Address Book, allowing me to choose who to send the message to. Although
the top of this box lists "Address Book" and appears to allow you to
switch to another source, there is no way to develop another source. In
my case, I would like a subset of my Address Book, listing only the 25
or so people that I regularly communicate with, instead of all nearly
300 contacts in my Address Book.

Are you trying to write to all of those 25, or do you want a "Most
Recently Used" list? How many people do you typically address a message
to? Too many that you can't just type in their names?

I realize this isn't what you're asking for, but have you *tried*
altering your habits so that you address messages from the Address Book?

I agree the Address Book interface in the message composition window is
much too limited, but there are many alternatives available.

That, in a nutshell, is the only reason that I am forced to use Mail
instead of Entourage as my primary mail client on my Mac. MS makes it
too difficult to address a mail message.

If you don't like Entourage, don't use it. But I can't imagine *this*
issue being a show-stopper.

 

[Diane Ross]

O.K., this is what I would like to happen:

OK, I get what you are trying to do now.

First, I turn off that little Address Book that's in the "To" line. To turn
off click on the icon that's just to the right of "Check Names." To me the
little Address Book is just a distraction and too small to be useful.

When you start typing into the "To" line, Entourage automatically starts
trying to enter from the Most Recently Used or AutoFill list.

Entourage's Address AutoComplete feature gathers addresses from both the
address book and the recently-used list (with a maximum of 200 entries).
They are sorted intelligently, organized by the frequency of messaging for
each contact, with the most-used contacts showing up on top.

There will always be 200. Some will always be considered "useless" by the
user. The better organized you are at adding "good" addresses to you address
book the more you will enjoy the MRU feature.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/glossary/mru.html>

Another trick is to assign a nickname to a contact. This is never seen, but
makes it easy to bring up a specific name. For example, you might have a lot
of Bobs in your Address Book. You could name one work bob, fat bob, skinny
bob, friend bob....you get the idea. When you type the nickname, that's the
only address that will be offered by Entourage.

However, you'll find that the autofill will quickly learn who you are
sending to the most often.

You just need to look at this with fresh eyes and see how easy it is doing
it the Entourage way.

Hope this helps!

 

[Richard Cervenka]

Are you trying to write to all of those 25, or do you want a "Most
Recently Used" list? How many people do you typically address a message
to? Too many that you can't just type in their names?

Depending on the message, I use between 1 and 12 different recipients.

I realize this isn't what you're asking for, but have you *tried*
altering your habits so that you address messages from the Address Book?

That's the problem. My Address Book contains close to 300 contacts. I'm
looking for a way to pare down my choices for addressing to the 25 or so
people that I communicate with regularly.

I agree the Address Book interface in the message composition window is
much too limited, but there are many alternatives available.
Such as?

If you don't like Entourage, don't use it. But I can't imagine *this*
issue being a show-stopper.

I DO like Entourage. That's why I'm trying to find out how I can make
addressing a message doable. Being given a list of all 300 of my
contacts every time I try to address a message is a bit much.

 

[Richard Cervenka]

OK, I get what you are trying to do now.

First, I turn off that little Address Book that's in the "To" line. To turn
off click on the icon that's just to the right of "Check Names." To me the
little Address Book is just a distraction and too small to be useful.

When you start typing into the "To" line, Entourage automatically starts
trying to enter from the Most Recently Used or AutoFill list.

Entourage's Address AutoComplete feature gathers addresses from both the
address book and the recently-used list (with a maximum of 200 entries).
They are sorted intelligently, organized by the frequency of messaging for
each contact, with the most-used contacts showing up on top.

There will always be 200. Some will always be considered "useless" by the
user. The better organized you are at adding "good" addresses to you address
book the more you will enjoy the MRU feature.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/glossary/mru.html>

Now THAT sounds like it might do what I need to do.

Another trick is to assign a nickname to a contact. This is never seen, but
makes it easy to bring up a specific name. For example, you might have a lot
of Bobs in your Address Book. You could name one work bob, fat bob, skinny
bob, friend bob....you get the idea. When you type the nickname, that's the
only address that will be offered by Entourage.

However, you'll find that the autofill will quickly learn who you are
sending to the most often.

You just need to look at this with fresh eyes and see how easy it is doing
it the Entourage way.

Hope this helps!

Thank you, Diane. I will try your suggestion.

Thanks to Adam and all the others who gave me advice on this thread, as
well. I really appreciate the effort!

 

[Diane Ross]

Thanks to Adam and all the others who gave me advice on this thread, as
well. I really appreciate the effort!

Once we get what a user is trying to do we can usually find a way to explain
how to do it. I know just switching from one Mac email application to
another is hard, but going from one platform to another is much more
difficult.