Some tips and tricks for Address Book labels
Dec 28, '05 04:38:00AM
Contributed by: dolfs
Recently, I was attempting to use the Address Book label (and envelope) printing function. It pretty much worked as expected, except for one thing. I noticed that on one of my cards for John Doe, it addressed the label as John and Jane Doe.
Sure enough, I had listed a spouse field for John. This got me interested, as it makes use for holiday cards a little more personal. Next I added a spouse to one of my other entries, but much to my surprise, the special salutation was not created. I started experimenting, and eventually discovered some of the (undocumented) logic behind all this:
- Address Book looks at the country code (ISO code) of the address that will be used. If that country indicates US, Canada, France or UK, it is eligible for this special processing. This will not work for any other country, but this can be changed, see below.
- If the spouse's last name is identical, the entry will become John and Jane Doe, otherwise you'll get John Doe and Jane Smith.
- Entries for children are also eligible. Result could be John, Jane, and Baby Doe.
- It appears that if children are listed by first name only, and there is a single card in the Address Book with that same first name, or if they are listed by a full name and they have a card, they must have the same address on that card in order to be listed.
Now this can be put to use, although it has limitations in the case of children living with Mom, but carrying Dad's last name etc. I'll leave it to others to comment on the short-sightedness of this restricted logic, but the feature has promise. The other problem exists if you want this for an address that is not in one of the countries specified.
Some hints, tricks and tips:
I am sure the logic I presented is not complete, but it is quite an exercise to try and figure this one out. Good luck!
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