Filed under: Tips and tricks, Mac 101
Mac 101: Address Book Tricks
For a pedestrian little program Address Book has a lot of neat features that people often forget about. If you go into the address book and click on on the name tab in front of a phone number you can select "Large Type" and have the number displayed all the way across your screen (see image after the jump). The original purpose of this feature was presumably so that you could display the number on your computer and easily dial it from across the room.
This "Large Type" seems to be built into OS X and so can be invoked in other ways as well. For instance, Quicksilver has "Large Type" as a built-in action for text. So if you invoke Quicksilver, enter text mode with a period (.), type some text, then tab to the action field and select "Large Type" it will be displayed in the same manner. This is surprisingly useful as I sometimes leave messages for other people on their Macs this way, and as we mentioned in a more advanced Quicksilver tip, this can be a great way to give yourself timed reminders.
In addition to Large Type on phone numbers, Address Book has lots other tricks up its sleeve. For instance, if you click on the tab in front of an address you can select "Map of" to open that address in Mapquest in your default browser (see after the jump). As we mentioned a while back, there's also a plugin to add Google Maps to this as well. With the appropriate Bluetooth phone Address Book can send SMS messages and dial numbers. You can even print out a pocket sized address book. If you haven't done so, check out the Address Book help for all these tips and more.
Large Type:
Map:
Map:
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mitch said 10:15AM on 5-10-2007
The 'dial with cell phone' feature wouldn't work with any of the phones I tried it with (Motorla SLVR, RAZR, Treo 650).
I wound up using a utility called BluePhone Elite that allows you to control your cell phone (blue tooth enabled) via your Mac. It also uses the Large type for incoming calls / caller ID.
It is worth the $20 (at least is was to me).
www.mirasoftware.com/bpe
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evden eve nakliyat said 10:23AM on 5-10-2007
thank you very very very much thank you very nıce...
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evden eve nakliyat said 1:01PM on 5-10-2007
thank you very very very much thank you very nıce...
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stephen said 10:29AM on 5-10-2007
i'm holding out hope that the dial and sms features of address book work with the iphone. there was no mention, but it is such a nice convenience and i can't imagine apple leaving it out of their own product.
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Leonard Nimrod said 12:10PM on 5-11-2007
Truly an overlooked app.
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chad said 6:44PM on 5-10-2007
I can't get the address book to display who is calling when my cell rings. I've turned on bluetooth power to the phone (RAZR T-Mobile) and paired it with the address book and iSync, but still nothing shows up on my MacBook for incoming calls.
Is there something I'm missing?
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ecobore said 6:52AM on 5-11-2007
Now why don't apple build in a facility to use a modem to dial out directly from address book using a land line and then release the call to a conventional telephone. To me that would be the killer app. Sure I can use Skype but all my European calls are free on my existing VOIP so why do I need to dial them after looking them up!!!
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Rich said 7:46AM on 5-11-2007
Anybody know how to access Large Type in OS X through the command line or script? It would be nice to push out large type text to clients' screens using Remote Desktop
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E.T.Cook said 10:40AM on 5-11-2007
Actually, in quicksilver, if you bring up a contact, and then press the "right" key, it will actually show their applicable pieces of contact information. Press enter when you have what you want to display in large type, and boom, it will show up! I believe you have to have the address book plugin for this to work.
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Stuart said 12:03PM on 5-12-2007
The large type number can also be accessed from the address book widget just by cliking on it...very useful.
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Chris - MyFirstMac.com said 7:31PM on 5-14-2007
My favorite application of this trick is when you click on the phone number in the "yellow pages" widget. This is usually the time I look for information and then grab the phone.
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Jeffrey Breitbart said 5:26AM on 5-22-2007
I'm really giving up on this program. I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but their Outlook program has this one beat by a landslide as far as I'm concerned. I don't understand why I can't just type in a name and phone number and address, etc. without having to take all of these cumbersome steps. With Outlook I created a new contact card in about 30 seconds with this Apple Mail, it takes several minutes and they don't always come out as I want. Very very strange program. Also, with Outlook, I could open up the program, hit the letter c and about 30 index cards, with name, address phone numbers, etc. would appear on one page, making it a breeze to find information. Similar problems occur with the Entourage program. I'm beginning to regret purchasing my apple. It is MUCH more stable than Microsoft, but the programs tend to suck and, contrary to what I was told, I am still having trouble with the MAC reading my camcorder and Yamaha (music) keyboard.
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Jeffrey Breitbart said 5:36AM on 5-22-2007
I apologize for an error in the above comment. I was referring to the Address Book program, not the mail program (it's late and my hands hurt). It just doesn't seem to be user friendly to me.
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Jim Newton said 2:42PM on 6-09-2007
I have a Treo 700WX and I have been looking to get this solution fixed as well with the address book. I tried the suggestion of Bluephone elite but it doesn't work for the Treo either. Has anyone found anything for the Treo 700WX or know why it won't work? Thanks.
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FJDR said 5:47PM on 6-20-2007
Hello;
Recently buy a Motorola KRZR K1.
Almost all features works well with bluetooth. Except Dial and sms with Address Book.app.
Any suggestion?
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ktula said 9:31PM on 6-30-2007
Right now, it does not appear that it is possible to send SMS using Address Book in Mac OS X 10.4.10.
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