Check for consistent Address Book number formatting

Jul 14, '05 06:55:00AM

Contributed by: rhowell

The ability of Address Book to automatically format phone numbers (Preferences>Phone) is nice, but here's a quick warning to those who share vCards with others, particularly if recipients don't use this feature (or use another program).

Address Book will automatically change any newly-entered phone number to your preferred format, both in its display of the number and the corresponding data. This is to be expected. But it will not convert the data of any already-present phone numbers to the format. By already-present, I mean any phone numbers that exist prior to turning this auto-format feature on. Sure, it'll always display the phone numbers in your preferred format, but the data (and corresponding vCard) will contain the format as it was originally entered.

I noticed this when sending my vCard to a colleague and asking him to please write my business contact information exactly as it appeared in it. He then proceeded to write phone and fax numbers in two formats, because in Panther I used parentheses around my area code, and in Tiger, I didn't.

So, if you're a neat freak and want to avoid embarrassing vCard exchanges or signatures, check your formats for existing contacts by disabling this auto-format feature. Manually fix any inconsistent entries to your preferred format (AppleScript, anyone?). Now turn the auto-format feature back on so all subsequent entries will be properly formatted.

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