Importing contacts into Address Book:
Address Book can import address information in the following formats:
vCard
LDIF format
tab-delimited file
comma-separated values (CSV) file
To import contact information from another application, you need to save or export a file in one of these formats. You can export addresses in LDIF format from Netscape, and vCards from Palm desktop, Entourage, Outlook, and others.
Most databases allow you to export text files in tab-delimited or CSV format. Address Book uses field labels in text files to know how to import the information into your address book. For example, Address Book uses the label "Last name" to match up that field in the imported text file with the "Last name" field in your card template. (If your database doesn’t include labels in the exported file, you can manually identify the information fields while importing the file into Address Book.)
To identify the kind of file you are trying to import, select the document and choose File > Get Info. Before importing a .txt or .cvs file, verify that the file does not contain line breaks, which might cause the import to fail. You can use any text editing application to find and remove line breaks.
To import addresses from other applications:
Export your addresses from the other application in one of the formats supported by Address Book.
When exporting a tab-delimited or CSV file, you may want to write down the order of the information fields. This will help you in step 4 if the exported file doesn’t contain labels.
In Address Book, choose File > Import and choose the format of the exported file from the submenu. Choose "Text file" for a tab-delimited or CSV file.
Select the file that contains the exported addresses.
If you are importing a text file, use the pop-up menus in the Text File Import dialog that appears to specify how to import the data.
If the first record contains labels instead of information for a contact, select the "Ignore first card" checkbox.
Use the left and right arrows to see different records in the file you're importing. This helps you determine how to set the pop-up menus. If you don't want to import a field, set the pop-up menu to "Do not import."
To set the pop-up menus for address fields, choose the type of address (home, work, or other) in the pop-up menu next to the first item of the address. Then use the address pop-up menus that appear to choose the corresponding data for each address field.
To import many addresses at once, create a vCard that has multiple contacts (if the other application supports it).
When exporting data from Palm Desktop, use the default column layout.
To see the last batch of addresses you added to Address Book, click Last Import in the Group column. The list of most recently imported addresses will be updated the next time you import addresses. Use the View menu to show or hide the Last Import item in the Group column.
You can also use iSync to import contacts from your Palm device. For more information, open iSync and search iSync help for "Palm."
