How do I enter couples with different last names?

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Level 1

8 points

How do I enter couples with different last names?

This must be a common problem but I can't find the answer by searching the discussion. How do I enter the names of couples with different last names? If Sam Smith and Suzie Jones are living together, I want their address to appear as

Sam Smith & Suzie Jones
125 A St.
Somewhere, IL 99999

It seems that I can have only one Last Name and one First Name field in the Address Book.
Do I enter the couple's names as if they were a company?
Is there some way to relate two names with the same address? Or...?

PowerBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Feb 21, 2006 12:04 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Pat Gallagher

Level 1

145 points

Feb 23, 2006 8:15 PM in response to Winky_D

My workaround to Address Book's limitations was to create three cards: one for each individual, and as recommended by others here, noting the partner's name in the spouse field. But then I create a third card that combined the 2 names - doesn't really matter which name field you use, put it all in one field.

I did it this way for a couple of reasons. Invariably, each person is going to have some differing info even though they share an address, such as emails, notes, cell phones, etc..., this way I can have that unique info for each individual without a lot of custom fields on one long card, trying to figure which info is whose, etc....

Then the third card I use for contacting them as a couple - holiday cards, invites, etc... Email headers, prints on labels and envelopes as you'd (or even better, they'd) expect. I simply add a unique word like "christmascard" in the note field for the couples "Bob Smith & Jane Doe" or "Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public" for instance, create a smart group based on having "christmascard" in the notes field and can call up all those marked cards as a group for labels or whatever. (Conversely, you would not put "christmascard" in that couple's individual cards)

And of course searching on any of the names brings up all three cards if needed.

This idea can be carried even further by adding more than one unique word to the notes field which I seperate with returns...like family, jokeemail, buds, cousins, well you get the idea. Smart groups are great, puts "related" people/addresses all in one spot for easy use.

Hope my 2 cents helps.

Pat Gallagher

XServe Mac OS X (10.4.3)

XServe Mac OS X (10.4.3)

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Answer 2

Winky_D Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 26, 2006 10:44 PM in response to Winky_D

Oh, duh. I'm learning as I go. If you create a card for Sam Smith and enter Suzie Jones as his spouse, their address automatically appears as I want:
Sam Smith & Suzie Jones
125 A St.
Somewhere, IL 99999

If Sam and Suzie have the same last name, Address Book is smart enough to print the address as:
Sam & Suzie Smith
125 A St.
Somewhere, IL 99999

If they have kids and you enter their names, they will appear on the address as well.

Note that you should still create seperate cards for spouses and children if you want to track their birthdays, e-mail, cell, etc.

And, I do still use the Company field sometimes to force the address line to appear as I like.

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Answer 3

Winky_D Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 23, 2006 5:14 PM in response to Winky_D

The solution I've found is to enter the couple's names in the Company field and check Company in Edit mode. This displays their names as Sam Smith & Suzie Jones and their address appears that way as well.

You can still search and find Suzie Smith. I'm creating seperate cards for the partners that I have seperate information for, like their cell phone etc. Both cards will show up in a search for Suzie Smith.

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Answer 4

Feb 21, 2006 4:48 PM in response to Winky_D

I would highly reccomend creating 2 cards, one for each person and duplicating the information. As the other post says, just add the spouse to the spouse field and then when you do a search for one of them, they will both come up.

If you need to print labels or something that has the two of them listed the way you specified, Address Book just isn't a good program for that. Unfortunately, I would suggest you use a spreadsheet/databse.

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Answer 5

Feb 27, 2006 12:25 PM in response to Winky_D

Winky:

I didn't know that either, I learn something new everyday, Thanks for reposting.

Pat

XServe Mac OS X (10.4.3)

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Answer 6

Feb 21, 2006 1:36 PM in response to Winky_D

Well they are still two people, wherever they live. Make two entries, one for Sam, one for Suzie. There is a field for "Spouse" or "Partner", etc. You can also put them together into a Group, if that is useful for you.

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Answer 7

Feb 21, 2006 3:15 PM in response to Winky_D

You can enter "Sam Smith &" in the First name area, and Suzie Jones" in the last name panel. After entering/saving, highlight the card, then select "swap first/last name" in the Card menu. Otherwise, when you send an e-mail the names will be reversed with the & at the very end.

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