macOS Addres book formatting

[Timpion]

Hi,

I just got a new phone, but I got some problems getting all my contacts from the old one. I was able to get them into addressbook, but the formatting is not optimal.

I made a script that merges the doubles (eg "Leonardo Di caprio" and "Leonardo Di caprio1")

The only problem now is all the names are in the last name field (eg:
FirstName: "", LastName: "Leonardo Di caprio")

Can someone help me with a script that would split the lastname at the first space " " and put the first part in the firstname field
(eg:FirstName: "Leonardo", LastName: "Di caprio")

I cant find how to do it

I got this far... (I am not really pro at applescript yet )

tell application "Address Book"
	set peopleToChange to people whose (name) contains " "
	repeat with thePerson in peopleToChange
		set theName to the name of thePerson
		...
	end repeat
	save
end tell

Thanks a lot!!

Tim

 

[andy 111r]

Are you not just getting confused by address book preferences.

ie you have the option of showing first name before or after last name with a radio button in general prefs.

 

[Matthew Yohe]

I would recommend just exporting as CSV or similar: ( http://gwenhiver.net/address-book-exporter.html ) and bring it into Excel or Google Spreadsheets.

Then you can easily split off last names using a textual formula that looks for a space or something and puts it in the correct cell.

Import that list into address book.

 

[Timpion]

Importing in a spreadsheet app is a very good (the best) idea. I ll do that next time!

I already did it with some scripts which worked quit well, but when I was done and used the "merge" function, addressbook threw away all data from people with two conflicting numbers.

Eg:
Leonardo di caprio
home xxx xx xx
---merge with---
Leonardo di caprio
home yyy yy yy
---gives---
Leonardo di caprio
home xxx xx xx

I had that a lot because while importing all my numbers where set to "home"(thanks to the great way data is stored on sim cards )

And ofcourse I noticed it the day after I deleted the backups I made (stupid not to keep the backups)

anyway, If anyone wants to take a look at the scripts, pm me. I am not posting them since they are loose bits of code (eg: one script to delete spaces, one to merge names,....)