Place a regular phone call on a Mac?

It is a process of elimination. If the phone number is not in your Contacts, you can click the green New FaceTime button where it will allow you to enter a new phone number, but will not let you make a FaceTime audio call until that number is placed in your Contacts. You do that by right-clicking on the entered number and choosing Add to Contacts… from the secondary menu.

Without a connected cell phone on Wi-Fi, there is no direct dialing of a number from FaceTime unless it is in your Contacts, or appears in the FaceTime side panel where rolling over it will reveal a phone icon.

Anthony Sbarro wrote:

I read those articles previous to my post. They do not answer the question.

Call Customer Support  (800) MY–APPLE (800–692–7753)

or on line  https://getsupport.apple.com/

..Anthony Sbarro..

Unless your carrier supports these options, that iOS and macOS can utilize

then your devices may fail to provide these; but the instructions within those

two articles attached in previous post, are accurate and work fine otherwise.

[Probably due to having iPhone & more than one Mac; plus wi-fi basestation.]

Use FaceTime with your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

//support.apple.com/en-us/HT204380

Make and receive phone calls in FaceTime on Mac - Apple Support

Sometimes to use either one of those, both should be checked to run.

When there are doubts ~ contact Official Apple Support directly to ask.

• Turn on FaceTime
• Make a FaceTime call
• Answer a FaceTime call with call waiting
• Hand off a FaceTime call to another device
• Create a link to a FaceTime call
• Share your screen
• Use SharePlay to watch and listen together
• Spatial Audio in FaceTime
• Filter background sounds
• Blur the background with Portrait mode
• Turn on Live Captions in a FaceTime call

We're not official Apple Support; however we are voluntary helpers

who only reply because we like to ~ but sometimes, not so much.

Anthony Sbarro wrote:

From what I can recall, you used to be able to use FaceTime to place normal phone calls to other normal phones. There used to be dial pad from what I remember. Is this no longer possible?

When I open FaceTime > New FaceTime Call > and enter the phone number, the FaceTime button on the bottom remains inactive (unless I enter someone from my contacts).

Is there any other way to place a call from a Mac now?

(It seems like Apple has done a good job making Venture more difficult to use then previous operating systems)

You can read what Apple has to say:

Make and receive phone calls on Mac or iPad - Apple Support

Make and receive phone calls in FaceTime on Mac