Address Book: How do you select, copy and paste info to an email?

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Level 3

579 points

Address Book: How do you select, copy and paste info to an email?

I look up a contact in my Mac Address Book and want to cut and paste email/address and phone into an email I am writing in another application - in this case using AOL online.

It seems that you cannot select and paste the information or selected parts of it from the Address Book to the email using the usual key commands to select/copy/paste text?

It is as if you are trying to copy from a photo... am I the only one to find this a completely mindless limitation of the Address Book?

Or is there something obvious I am missing?

thanks in advance

MS

Mac Pro1,1 Dual-Core Intel Xeon 3GHz 5GB RAM + L9 + Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, Mac OS X (10.5.8), MacBookPro OS X (10.6.3) 2.66 + M Audio Fast Track Ultra

Posted on Jan 31, 2011 3:41 PM

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Answer 1

bcvc71

Level 1

4 points

Sep 18, 2015 5:42 PM in response to Chris CA

Using the Share button has its place, but it doesn't allow for simple cut and paste of all contact information in a particular contact. If there's a simpler way to achieve that than an Automator workflow, I'm all ears.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,342 points

Jan 31, 2011 4:17 PM in response to Neville Mayfield

The way I understood it (because it has been asked that way before), is selecting multiple fields (phone, email, address) and copying the whole thing. Yes, you can copy one single field, but you can't copy the entire card at once.

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,342 points

Jan 31, 2011 4:00 PM in response to musicspirit

That feature was available pre-Snow Leopard. However, all the programs were re-written for Snow Leopard and a few things didn't seem to make the cut. Nobody here knows whether the feature will reappear one day, nor can we speculate on its reappearance.
However, you can create an Automator Service that will copy the selected card's info to the clipboard.
Open Automator and select Service as the type of workflow.
Set it to receive no input from Address Book.
Click on the Contacts item in the Library and drag over the Get Selected Address Book Items action. Set it for People.
Then, drag in a Get Contact Information action. Set it for the general information you'd like to copy. If you want it to ask for the info, click on Options at the bottom of the Action and set it to show this action when workflow runs.
Click on Utilities in the Library and drag in a Copy to Clipboard action.
Save the workflow and open Keyboard System Preferences. Find your service and create a shortcut for it. Now, in address Book, with a contact selected, Go to the Address Book menu, Services, and select your service. After selecting it once from the services menu, it will respond the the shortcut.

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Answer 4

Jan 31, 2011 4:10 PM in response to Barney-15E

Of course you can copy from AB to Mail! I've just done it.

Drag over the info you want to copy to highlight it, use the usual copy command, go to Mail and paste into your email.

If you want all the info for the contact just drag the contact's name from the AB window into the message part of Mail and a vCard will be created in your email.

Have I missed something in the posts?

Perhaps AOL doesn't allow pasting into an email.

Neville

Message was edited by: Neville Mayfield

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Answer 5

Jan 31, 2011 4:45 PM in response to Barney-15E

Barney, you're right about not being able to select multiple fields in the copy & paste. Address & phone number would be at least 2 copy & paste's.

The vCard of course can include all information in one move.

I'm sure it would not be difficult for Apple's software engineers to allow multiple cmd-select items to be copied in one basic step or in fact drag-select over multiple fields too. Do you know whether this has been requested through the appropriate channels?

Neville

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,342 points

Jan 31, 2011 5:59 PM in response to Neville Mayfield

It worked in Leopard. However, it wasn't terribly pretty. The formatting was kind of all over the place.
I believe it has been submitted through feedback, but I don't know if anyone submitted it as a bug report or ER.

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Answer 7

musicspirit Author

Level 3

579 points

Feb 1, 2011 7:26 AM in response to Barney-15E

thanks Barney for your painstaking explanation - this is an amazing and challenging piece of advanced programming for a technologically challenged Mac citizen like me, but I did try it and after 15' I got to the point where I opened the Address Book selected the short cut and tried to paste it to Text Edit as an experiment... but it did not work.

I think I need to get into this whole Automation thing more but have never even gone there in over 10 years of using a Mac.

Am sure it is very useful for doing mundane repetitive tasks together - is there a QT movie available of this somewhere?

* * *

But just to clarify at the end: I ought to use my Short cut to select and copy the Address book info to clipboard and then Control V into any document as text... is that the objective?

Thanks for your help

best

Music Spirit

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Answer 8

musicspirit Author

Level 3

579 points

Feb 1, 2011 7:33 AM in response to Neville Mayfield

thanks Neville also for your input - which has helped clarify... that you cannot select multiple fields which is really a serious limitation to copying an address book contact to any word processing application in normal text...

best

M S

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Answer 9

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,342 points

Feb 1, 2011 4:35 PM in response to musicspirit

You first should select the command from the Services menu that is in the Address Book menu. Once you have done that one time, the shortcut will work. And yes, you would then paste into your email. However, paste is cmd-v, not ctrl-v.

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Answer 10

mdp123

Level 1

18 points

Mar 29, 2012 2:16 PM in response to musicspirit

This worked fine on all OS's prior to Snow Leopard (to which I've just upgraded) and now this basic functionality was lost. I frequently send vCards as attachments but sometimes you just need some of the text (but multiple fields) to be able to paste somewhere.

I'm amazed this isn't a basic feature kept by Address Book now on Lion.

mdp

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Answer 11

Apr 5, 2012 1:47 PM in response to mdp123

This is insane! I switched to Mac a few years ago (still use XP/Win7/Linux at work) and generally like it. However, I keep running into these idiotic and arbitratry limitations! I want to create a bunch of address cards for people I work with. Everthing is the same except phone extension, name, and email. There's no way to copy/duplicate contacts in Mac Address Book or on my iPhone. And, like many similar issues, if I dare to ask about it at an "Expert Bar", I'll first get a look of confusion and when I finally get the person to understand, I'll just get the useless response of "that's how it works". No ideas for work-arounds. No reporting to Apple development. Just the attitude of "why would anyone want to do anything it doesn't already do?"

It's great having all the Apple stores around here and being able to ask (simple) questions, but they're really not able to deal with much more than older folks who just bought a Mac and don't know how to use a computer at all. If you've been using dozens of computers and operating systems for 20+ years, they don't want to talk to you.

David

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Answer 12

musicspirit Author

Level 3

579 points

Sep 18, 2015 1:55 PM in response to bcvc71

I just tried this but it doesn't work .. for me that is. I set the instructions out thus:

1 - Open Automator and select Service as the type of workflow

2 - Set it to receive no input from [ Address Book] now called Contacts [?]

3 - Click on the Contacts item in the Library and drag over the Get Selected [Contact] Items action.

4 - Set it for People.

5 - Then, drag in a Get Contact Information action.

6 - Set it for the general information you'd like to copy.

7 - If you want it to ask for the info, click on Options at the bottom of the Action and set it to show this action when workflow runs.

8 - Click on Utilities in the Library and drag in a Copy to Clipboard action.

9 - Save the workflow and open Keyboard System Preferences.

10 - Find your service and create a shortcut for it [ There was a short cut for 'Copy Mail Addresses to Clip Board' Option Command C]

[ I created my own short cut Option Command G called ' GET CONTACT INFO'

11 - Now, in address Book, with a contact selected, Go to the Address Book menu, Services, and select your service.

12 - After selecting it once from the services menu, it will respond the the shortcut.

In SERVICES in Contacts both key commands above do appear

.. So you select a contact .. it is highlighted in light blue and the Contact info appears next to you on the RIght hand page

Execute the short cut.. OPTION COMMAND C - open text edit .. Command V paste: nothing happens

Execute the short cut OPTION COMMAND G - open text edit - Command V paste:nothing happens

Uncheck GET CONTACT INFO from Key Shortcuts: only 'Copy Mail Addresses to Clip Board' appears in Contact Services = nothing works

Uncheck 'Copy Mail Addresses.. " and re-instate GET CONTACT INFO - Open Contacts - Select a Contact - OPTION COMMAND G - open text edit - Command V paste:nothing happens

… *** 😉 ...

Any suggestions ( am on OSX 10.8.5)

* * *

Interesting to note that since my initial post in Jan 2011 there is perhaps this programmed Key Command "Copy Mail Addresses to Clip Board" in the Keyboard Shortcuts Default … but it doesn't seem to work (OPTION COMMAND G) …

Still have to put contacts in edit mode and select copy paste each box in a persons contact info … after all these years - I hope I am not understanding something and that it does actually work

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Answer 13

bcvc71

Level 1

4 points

Sep 18, 2015 3:16 PM in response to musicspirit

Here's how I got the Automator workflow to work in OSX 10.10.5:

1. Open Automator, select Service, and click on Choose.

2. In the new untitled workflow, set Service receives selected to: "no input" in: "Contacts.app" (in 10.8.5 it may still be called Address Book.app -- find it by browsing for it under "Other...").

3. In the Library (left pane in Automator), click on Contacts.

4. In the Contacts list of actions (next to the left-most pane in Automator), drag "Get Selected Contacts Items" into the workflow (the rightmost pane in Automator) (the action is likely named "Get Selected Address Book Items" in 10.8.5).

5. In the "Get Selected Contacts Items" action, set it for "People".

6. In the Contacts list of actions (next to the left-most pane in Automator), drag "Get Contact Information" into the workflow BELOW the "Get Selected Contacts Items" action item.

7. In the "Get Contact Information" action, set export format to "Formatted Text", and also select the general information you'd like to copy (I used the select all button and then deselected the couple items I didn't want, like birthday, for example). If you want the workflow to first ask you what info you wish to copy from the contact, click on Options at the bottom of the action and set it to "Show this action when workflow runs".

8. In the Library (left pane in Automator), click on Utilities.

9. In the Utilities list of actions (next to the left-most pane in Automator), drag "Copy to Clipboard" into the workflow BELOW the "Get Contact Information" action item.

10. Save the workflow (in the menu File/Save...) and give it a name like "Copy Contact".

11. Open System Preferences and click on "Keyboard" to access the Keyboard system preferences. Click on "Shortcuts" and then select "Services" in the left pane. Scroll down the various services listed in the right pane and locate your saved service ("Copy Contact" if you named it that).

12. Click on the saved service to highlight it, then click on "add shortcut", then type an unused keyboard combination to create the shortcut keystroke (I used the control/option/command keys (all pressed simultaneously) + C key). Close the System Preferences window.

13. That's all for 10.10.5. In 10.8.5, in the Address Book app, with a contact selected, you may have to go to the Address Book menu, select "Services", and select your service to activate it (although I'm not sure that's necessary).

14. Now, in the Contacts application, select/highlight a contact name, and press your shortcut keystroke. The contact information will be copied to your clipboard, which you can then paste into another application (like Word, Mail, etc.).

Good luck!

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