Mac Help 101 - the big conversion Keith Tom etc please help

[Skywatcher]

OK got the iMac linked to my old fashioned server at wanadoo but I can't seem to import the address book into contacts - please tell me I don't have to retype all my email address' I have it saved as a csv and a wab file. tried the apple ab application but it made no sense and it was only free for first run

any ideas??

Not been using the mac for e-mail up till now - only web based mail

[josh.p.]

Can you not export them as Vcards?

[Keith]

I would've thought it's as simple as export them to a .csv file then call up addressbook, do file - import choose your file and hope

[catrancher]

Okay, let's try this. First of all, this is a direct copy from the Address Book help file. Any Apple application will have help available that's specific to it. When you're in Address Book, choose Help off the menu bar. Then in the search box in the upper right hand corner of the Help window, type "import". One of the results that come up will be "importing contacts from other applications". The following is what it says:

Importing contacts from other applications
Address Book can import contact information that you have saved or exported from other applications in vCard, LDAP Interchange Format (LDIF), tab-delimited, and comma-separated value (CSV) formats.

You can export addresses in LDIF format from Netscape, and vCards from Entourage, Outlook, and others. You can export text files in tab-delimited or CSV format from Numbers or most databases.

To import contacts:

Export addresses from another application in a supported format.

Before exporting tab-delimited or CSV files, you may want to note the order of the information fields. If the file doesn’t contain labels, you can refer to your notes to manually identify the fields in a later step.

If the application you’re exporting from supports it, export vCards that include multiple contacts to speed up importing. For example, in Outlook select all of your contacts and choose to forward them as vCards. Send the email message, which includes a vCard attachment for each selected contact, to yourself on your Mac computer. In Mail, save the vCard attachments, and then use Address Book to import them.

Verify the exported .txt or CSV files using a text editor such as TextEdit.

Make sure there are no line breaks within a contact’s information, which can cause the import to fail. Remove any line breaks you find.

Make sure that fields in a .txt or tab-delimited file are separated by a tab, and fields in a CSV file are separated by a comma, instead of by quotation marks or another character. Do not include spaces before or after tabs and commas.

Make sure all addresses have the same number of fields; add empty fields as needed.

In Address Book, choose File > Import, select the file you want to import, change the encoding if necessary, and then click Open.

If you’re importing a text file, review the field labels Address Book will use for the information. You can change field labels, or choose to ignore or not import fields.

If the first card contains headers, review the headers to make sure they are correctly labeled or marked as “Do not import,” and make changes as necessary. Any changes you make to this card are made in all of the cards in the file. To exclude the headers card from being imported, select the “Ignore first card” checkbox.

Use the arrows to browse information in the file to determine if fields need to be relabeled or not imported.

To change a label, click the arrows next to the label and choose a new label from the pop-up menu. If you don’t want to import a field, choose “Do not import.”

When you import contacts into an Exchange 2007 account, information in Exchange fields that aren’t supported in Address Book are added to the Notes field on the contact’s card.

To see the most-recently imported contacts, click Last Import in the Group column. This list is updated each time you import contacts. Use the View menu to show or hide the Last Import item in the Group column.

If you receive a message containing a vCard file in Mail, you can easily import it into Address Book by double-clicking the vCard. Address Book opens and asks you to confirm adding the card to your address book.

Let me know if this doesn't work for you or you're still having a problem figuring it out.

Tom (... no... you won't have to retype them)

[Skywatcher]

Thanks chaps - the problem was when I was exporting the csv I wasn't including enough fields so contacts couldn't make any sense of the info so I went back and checked all the boxes when exporting. Some still didn't have Name etc in the fields as these had been automatically stuck into the outlook express address book when they sent me an email so about 20 or so I had to change by hand and type in their details; as far as I could tell there was no way of exporting v cards from OE.

Will be back with more questions as they arise

Oh and face recognition in iPhoto is awesome