Address Book - Who do you know?

Address Book.

Most Windows users are used to using something like Windows Address Book or Outlook to keep track of contacts. For Mac users, Address Book does this and a whole lot more!

Who do you know?

Address Book is designed to keep your contacts organized YOUR way. Your business contacts. Your family. Your friends. Keeping them together is a snap with Address Book for Mac.

So many people today have several phone numbers, E-mail addresses and even physical addresses. (ie: Home, Work) Address Book allows you to record almost anything about people that you know. You can enter addresses, phone numbers, anniversary dates, E-mail addresses and even the dog's name if you want!
Looking at the picture here, you can see that you can add anything you wish to remember about a contact. (All of this is searchable, by the way, in Address Book)

You can also import contacts. Using the vCard format or even text formats you can import contacts. Simply click File>Import and you will be prompted to choose the file to import. Or you can simply drag the file onto the Address Book icon on you dock! How easy is that?

Once you get your contacts into your Address Book, what next?

Organize Your Contacts

With you contacts entered now you can organize them in several ways. First, you can create a "group" of contacts by clicking the plus icon at the bottom left of the address book window. Then simply drag the contact into the group. This action will not duplicate the contacts, but will simply give you a way to quickly view or E-mail them at one stroke.

The other, and more powerful, way to organize is with "Smart Groups" that can be dynamically created. To crate a new smart group, hold down the Option key and click the plus icon. Then you will have the options to enter the terms you wish in order to organize the group. For example, suppose you want a group of contacts sorted by ZIP code.

See the picture here. As you can see, you can refine you group even further by adding (Plus icon) more fields. Now, anytime you add a new contact that meets the criteria specified, the group will automatically be updated.

Address Book can be accessed in iChat, Mail and Spotlight.

How do you use Address Book? I'd be eager to hear from you! Leave a comment below!