Why aren't my contacts in alpha order when printing list?

To print your contacts in proper order in Mountain Lion you have to set up your icloud account in system preferences. Make sure you select Contacts as one of the items that is backed up to icloud. Go to your icloud account and open Contacts. To print all contacts, right click on the gear wheel icon, go to select all and then select print. To first see what you are printing, I had to select open in PDF view. I don't know why I had to do this but it seemed the only way to find out if my contacts were in the proper order (which they were).

Now if I could only figure out how to select only parts of each contact to print (e.g. name and email only), how to change the font and how to get more contacts on a page, I would be a happy camper.

I don't know if anyone who works at Apple reads these things or not, but I think one should be able to print an alphabetical list from their computer or iphone and/or be able to control the information printed.

I posted a similar queston a few weeks ago.

I do not use the cloud for my addresses and the alpha lists fails to print an ordered list, so this solution is no use. I do not use the cloud for personal data, nor will I.

This is a failure of Contacts since moving to ML OS. Mailing labels and evelopes work properly - only alpha listings will not work.

My contacts are printing in random order. Somehow I duplicated all contacts trying to get them to print via mac or icloud. I am so confused. I never had this problem before icloud. Can anyone help???

I've just had the same problem - I want to print a group mailing list for my wife who hand addresses holiday cards, but can't do it in alphabetical order by last name. And the previous solution, a corrupted plist file, is no longer available since the advent of the cloud. Help!

I just found a way to print contacts in ABC order. I signed in to my iCloud account online, then went to Contacts. I selected the contact group I wanted to print on the left page (example Xmas card list). On the right page at the bottom, I clicked on the gear symbol and clicked "select all", then clicked again on "print". When the print window appeared, I saved the file to PDF, just to see if the information was in ABC. It was!

print groups or all.... no choices but at least it's a start until they fix it.

Unfortunately, that must work only if you use the cloud. No gear symbol is present on the Mac and I do NOT use the cloud.

I tried to select a group, then chose "select all" under edits, then print (as a PDF), but it is still in jumbled order. (even just as a name/phone number list, the PDF is 9 pages long of a scrambled mess!)

OK, I don't know if this would fit your needs, but....

It is a fact that the printing of the Address Book/Contacts is seriously jacked-up in Mountain Lion.

Having said that, if you are not using iCloud, open a Numbers blank template. You will have your grid. Open Contacts, select your group that you want printed out.

Drag and drop that group into the Numbers page. It will automatically fill in the page with four columns. They will be Last, First, Phone, Email. The rest of the columns on the page should be deleted. You can delete Phone and Email if you don't want it also.

The names probably won't be in order alphabetically. Go up to the "Last Name" column and right-click the arrow in the very right bottom of the column heading. Choose "Sort Assending". That should fix that.

Now, you can jack around with the font size and page orientation. You still won't be able to print mailing addresses or photos of the contacts. It ain't pretty, but better than nuttin'. This kinda works for me, because I use it as an attendance sheet for a club.

Thanks BoPeep45...

not only do I love your suggestion but I love the ostrich on your home page..... I also teach a class and this is the quickest way of printing out a sign-in sheet. I do it with a little more effort but this is extremely quick; Also as a side note, if you want some of your other address book comments to show up you can preset the columns' name with the "exact" field name and it will plop in that information also, ie address or notes... I didn't check on the picture but I know the other fields do show up.

Apple really needs to fix this problem. I really don't like the extra step of going to icloud.com to print out things alphabetically it's so inconvenient. Tim Cook may not see it as a problem but I'm sure Steve Jobs would not tolerate "half-a**ed" software on his operating systems...I just read some terse comments he made to his staff when another program was not up to his expectations (Mobile Me) and that is why he PERSONALLY presented iCloud to the public He expected perfection and when he didn't get it, he let the hammer fall.

This has been a problem ever since Mountain Lion came out and they are totally ignoring it. I, and I'm sure many of you, have reported this "bug" to them to fix over the past year and nothing has been done. It should be an easy fix.

Thanks again for your suggestion....

kattnip333

boPeep45

If you look at the top row of column names, you will see that the names go from "B" "C" etc but then jump to "J", that means some columns are "hidden" click on the header and choose "show columns J-M" or what ever it says and additional columns show up, including the picture column and notes etc. they are all there, just hidden . Select the table - go to the "Table" menue and select "show all hidden columns" and everything pops up. Delete the rows you don't want and you are good to go. It even shows pics if you have them in the addressbook.

Kattnip333

it appears today's 10.8.3 update FINALLY fixed the contacts list printing to be in alpha order!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did the update. Yes, the names print in alaphabetical order. But, STILL, no photos. I need the photos for my particular application. Bummer!

Thanks for your reply though. I wouldn't have known about the update. It should have let me know we had one.