How does Entourage sort names in address book?

[Steve Hyde]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone can help me - I'm pretty confused about the way Entourage
sorts names in the normal Address Book view.

If I select the normal Address Book view with nothing filtered out, and
click on 'Name' then I would expect everything to be sorted purely
alphabetically either ascending or descending.

In my case, I get a list of companies for which there is no Person, i.e.
Restaurants (in various categories) sorted alphabetically, in ascending
order A - Z. After an entry named 'Zen' I get 'Apple Computer' followed by
all the remaining companies listed descending order Z - A.

After this I get a list of Contacts for which there is a named person,
correctly listed alphabetically by surname.

I simply can't see any logic to the listing of Company Names.

I get the following in this order (this is just an extract):

Andechser am Dom
Al Pino
Anderson Consulting GmbH
ARAG Krankenversicherung
AT & T
Blumen Robby
Avis Car Rental
Bousquerey, Le
British Airways Executive Club

Now why does Avis come between Blumen and British? I thought it might have
something to do with names having two or three words causing confusion, but
then why wouldn't 'Al Pino' appear under 'p', or 'British Airways Executive
Club' appear under 'a' or 'e'?

I am totally confused. Can anyone put me out of my misery?

Thanks

Steve

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

What you're seeing is a rather poorly implemented update that's not finished
yet.

Entourage sorts by LastName, but displays as FirstName LastName. (If there's
only a first name it displays alphabetically as if it were a last name.)

In previous versions of Entourage, contacts with _no_ first or last name
appeared blank in the Name column, and all bunched at the top. Since there
was absolutely no way to sort a blank entry, they appeared in the order they
were created, which looks haphazard.

In Entourage 2004, they suddenly decided to display other field names if
both First and Last names are missing. In this order of priority, until a
non-blank entry appears: Nickname, Company, Email Address, Instant Message
Address. But unfortunately they never got around to alphabetizing them
within the Name column in the same way they do for FirstName-only contacts.
They're still all bunched at the top, and still in the haphazard order of
creation.

The trick is to never make company-only or email-only contacts. Always copy
the company name or email into the Last Name field. Then everything will
sort correctly. If you have more than a few of these, you can fix them by
running the following script in Script Editor:



tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
set noNames to every contact whose name = ""
repeat with noName in noNames
set comp to company of noName
if comp ‚ "" then
set last name of noName to comp
else
try
set last name of noName to (get email address 1 of noName)
end try
end if
end repeat
beep
display dialog "All done!"
end tell


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Steve Hyde]

Hi Paul,

I'm grateful to you for your explanation, but to be honest the solution
would be 'out of the frying pan, into the fire' for me. I tried it on a
couple of contacts and now I get Avis Car Rental appearing under 'C'.

In addition, it would mean each entry showing the name twice, not only in
Entourage but on my Palm as well - not a major problem but it offends me
aesthetically.

It also doesn't explain why the list reaches 'Z', displays one contact with
'A' and then displays the remaining companies from Z to A.

What I frankly don't understand is why Microsoft developed Office for the
Mac with all of the applications being more or less identical with the
exception of Outlook, which in my opinion is the jewel in the MS Crown. Why
did they develop a completely new app? I still miss the 'Card' view for
addresses in Outlook and the Palm Conduit for Entourage is a catastrophe.

Just my two penn'th

Steve