[Solved] How to import Mac Contacts into Calc ?

[andye]

Hi,
I have an iMac running OS 10.8.4. Open Office is Ver: 3.4.1
I am unable to import data from the iMac "Contacts" into an OO Calc spreadsheet. Does anyone have any suggestions? I basically want to be able to print an address/name report in a different format that the Mac Contacts allows.

Thanks in advance

E-mail removed, nobody will reply by mail and it will avoid spam bots to register your address (Hagar, Moderator).[/color

]

A big thanks to those who responded!!!! Thanks to you all..... I'm able to "import" my iMac contacts list into a Calc spreadsheet!!! andye

[Villeroy]

Are iMac contacts stored in a spreadsheet?

[Villeroy]

Are iMac contacts stored in a spreadsheet?

No, of course not.
And by the way: There is not a single program (and won't be in the foreseeable future) that could simply "open" any data you throw at it.

http://www.actualtech.com/sqlite_applications.php

Address Book
The addresses in the Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" Address Book are stored in a SQLite database. The database is located at /Users/account name/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook-v22.abcddb

This would give us a very convenient option if only ...

You might be more interested in the simple (but clumsy) csv export:
http://email.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ ... ab2csv.php

[MrProgrammer]

File > New > Spreadsheet
File > Wizard > Address Data Source > Mac OS X Address Book > Next > {Select location} > Make address book available > Finish
In the new spreadsheet, press F4 > Expand Addresses > Expand Tables > Drag Address Book to cell A1

In the wizard, you're creating a Base document which connects Open Office to the Mac's address book. At the {Select location} step, you're specifying where you want this Base document stored. I'd suggest using the default that is offered for the name and folder location. Put it somewhere in your Documents folder, not in /Users/{YourAccountName}/Library. You won't need to do anything further with this Base document, but it must exist if you want to access the Mac's address book (Contacts). I tried this on a Mac OS X 10.8.4 system with AOO 3.4.1 and it worked for me.

If this answered your question please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[Villeroy]

Aaah, on the Mac it is available as a data source just like the lists in my Thunderbird mail program.
Out of curiosity: Is it editable in the data source window?

[MrProgrammer]

I hope this quote addresses your question, Villeroy. I haven't experimented with this much since the Base → Address Book feature doesn't work on my main system (OOo 3.2 and OS X 10.6.8). I realize 3.2 is getting rather old, but it has been a very reliable product and the features in 3.3/3.4 didn't interest me. I expect to install 4.0 once that stabilizes since I want the new RegEx engine. The same has been true for OS X; 10.6 is a very good system and 10.7/10.8 have nothing of interest (plus some things I don't like) so I'm staying put for now.

Registering an Address Book
In OpenOffice.org you can register different data sources. The contents of the data fields are then available to you for use in various fields and controls. Your system address book is such a data source. … The address book data is read-only in OpenOffice.org Base. It is not possible to add, edit, or delete address data from within Base.

[andye]

Thanks to all of you. I'll read your suggestions and give it a try this afternoon. I will get back to you.
Thanks,
andye

[andye]

File > New > Spreadsheet
File > Wizard > Address Data Source > Mac OS X Address Book > Next > {Select location} > Make address book available > Finish
In the new spreadsheet, press F4 > Expand Addresses > Expand Tables > Drag Address Book to cell A1

In the wizard, you're creating a Base document which connects Open Office to the Mac's address book. At the {Select location} step, you're specifying where you want this Base document stored. I'd suggest using the default that is offered for the name and folder location. Put it somewhere in your Documents folder, not in /Users/{YourAccountName}/Library. You won't need to do anything further with this Base document, but it must exist if you want to access the Mac's address book (Contacts). I tried this on a Mac OS X 10.8.4 system with AOO 3.4.1 and it worked for me.

If this answered your question please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

Hi.... I was able to use the Wizard and it appeared to work successfully. The next step.... where you say: "In the new spreadsheet, press F4" doesn't work for me. When I press F4 it changes the screen so all I see is three items (Calclator, Temperature, and clock). What am I doing wrong?
Thanks... andye

[karolus]

Hallo
F4 is Default-shortcut for →View→Datasources

Karolus

[MrProgrammer]

When I press F4 it changes the screen so all I see is three items (Calclator, Temperature, and clock). What am I doing wrong?

See I have a Mac and have yet to figure out how to get my function keys to work.

[hskoppek]

MacBookPro user, running MacOS Sierra version 10.12.5 (16F73) and OpenOffice 4.1.3

I am looking to find a way to manage my contacts from a MacBook ans realize that this is an old entry, but so far, I have not found anything more recent. However, every time I follow these instructions

File > New > Spreadsheet
File > Wizard > Address Data Source > Mac OS X Address Book > Next > {Select location} > Make address book available > Finish
In the new spreadsheet, press F4 > Expand Addresses > Expand Tables > Drag Address Book to cell A1

OpenOffice quits on me.

I have also tried to export my contacts as a vCard, but don't manage to import data from there to OpenOffice

Can anybody help ?

Thanks

[Villeroy]

The Base component of OpenOffice 4.1.0 for the Mac was broken. Update to 4.1.2 or install https://libreoffice.org for the Mac

[hskoppek]

Hi Villeroy,

Thanks for the quick response.

I am already past update 4.1.2 and have installed 4.1.3. To be sure, I re-installed it yesterday again, but OpenOffice keeps quitting during the last stage when I drag Address Book to cell A1.

[Villeroy]

Does the drag&drop operation work with another database object such as Bibliography > Table "biblio"?
Open the database document which is connected to your data source. Right-click>Edit... in the data source window will do.
Click the "Tables" section in that document, copy the table icon (don't open the table) and paste into a spreadsheet. If this works, you get a snapshot copy of the table.
I think, all these features work better in LibreOffice. I can not use OpenOffice on Linux for similar reasons and I do not believe that OpenOffice will be able to gain momentum.

[hskoppek]

I have now installed LibreOffice and tried to follow

File > New > Spreadsheet
File > Wizard > Address Data Source > Mac OS X Address Book > Next > {Select location} > Make address book available > Finish
In the new spreadsheet, press F4 > Expand Addresses > Expand Tables > Drag Address Book to cell A1

. Pressing F4 does not deliver any response.

For some reason, I was able to create a database which indicates "Mac OS X Address Book" in the bottom. The file defaults to "Forms" view. When clicking on "Tables", I can see my contact details. However, every time I scroll down to the last entry, the file quits. Also, it does not allow me to make any content modifications, i.e. enter data or delete data. I can resize columns though.

When I tried to save the file before scrolling to the bottom, LibreOffice froze (rainbowwheel) and I had to force quit.

[Villeroy]

View>Data Sources opens the data source window. One of the draw backs with LO is that too many people change too many things, all the menues and shortcuts in particular.

Address book sources are not intended to be editable. You have special programs to maintain these sources.

Regarding the crash, this seems to be reported already: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/sho ... ?id=109065 and there are good chances that this problem will be cured very soon since LO has an active developer community.

[hskoppek]

Thanks Villeroy,

At least I could follow your instructions, but as I drag the addressbook into cell A1, libreoffice crashes on me in the same way as open office did.

I guess, I give up right now walking this route.

If you know of a reliable source to manage contacts in a spreadsheet or database format online, I like to hear from you.

[MrProgrammer]

I am looking to find a way to manage my contacts from a MacBook

That is the purpose of the Contacts application which is included in Mac OS X.

Pressing F4 does not deliver any response.

[Tutorial] Mac FAQ, Q10/A10.

If you know of a reliable source to manage contacts in a spreadsheet or database format online, I like to hear from you.

Your Mac's Contacts application stores the information in a database. Mine is in file "/Users/{MyAccount}/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/AddressBook-v22.abcddb". I can access this database using the SQLite software. You could presumably access yours "online" with a suitably programmed web server.

A spreadsheet is not a good "database" to manage the information from Contacts. You could have columns for first name, last name, birthday, etc. But then how are addresses to be managed? A contact can have multiple address, home, work, other, and even Custom → FloridaTimeshare, Custom → HawaiiTimeshare, etc. Do these go in separate columns? How many columns? What if a contact has more then one has allowed for? Or do they go in a separate sheet with some sort of "link"? Email addresses, URLs, related names all have the possibility of multiple values per contact. Using a spreadsheet quickly becomes unworkable, which is why contacts must use a database unless real-world complications are simply ignored. In that case you can have them "online" using Google Sheets. Just export the data you want to CSV format using SQLite then import into Google Sheets.

I have also tried to export my contacts as a vCard, but don't manage to import data from there

All the data from the contact is in the vCard, but, as explained, it's too complicated to load in a spreadsheet. You could put it in a Writer document. This won't be user-friendly but all the data is there.

The Base component of OpenOffice 4.1.0 for the Mac was broken. Update to 4.1.2 or install https://libreoffice.org for the Mac

Actually 4.1.2 was the one that was broken, so one either needs to upgrade to 4.1.3 or downgrade to 4.1.0. (Mac FAQ Q09/A09).

I am already past update 4.1.2 and have installed 4.1.3

Fix your forum signature in User Control Panel → Profile → Edit Signature. It still says you run 4.1.0.