Contacts & Dymo LabelWriter

I have just bought a Dymo 450 and have been struggling with it for 2 days. The installer never advises to restart but I have found this necessary to load the drivers on three different iMacs, one running Lion and two running Mavericks. I cant get Dymo 8.5 software (the latest and greatest) to recognise any Mac Address Book or Contacts - the specific Dymo menu item is always greyed out.

In Lion, on a white polycarbonate iMac, creating a user Address Book is impossible because after Save the next time the software opens there is no sign of the new Address Book. Nor is it possible to permanently delete the entries in the Sample Address Book, although you can add to that list they disappear after you dismiss the software and reopen it. The only way I can use this software is to create a label and save the label to a folder on the desktop. After making all my labels in this way I can load any one of them by double clickiing the saved label icon. I can only print one label at a time but this suffices for my needs and making a new label and saving the item is quick and easy. The print all selected labels button is greyed out.

In Mavericks I have made my own custom Address Book. Apart from not wanting to play with Apple Contacts the software seems fully functional as I can print a single label or mutiple copies of it or print from a chosen selection.

I cant say what if anything you are doing wrong. Have you upgraded the software recently? I am just reconciled to the fact that the software is very probably badly written, but as long as I can print my labels I can live with it. The labels themselves are well printed showing a strong full black.

What I discovered is that my Dymo Labelwriter software was behaving like yours and the OSX Contacts information was unavailable to the app because DLS didn't have permission to access the Contacts data.

I fixed it by going to System Preferences - Security & Privacy - Privacy Tab. Click on Contacts in the left column. In the right column you should see "Allow the Apps below to access your contacts." Put a check in the box beside "Dymo Label-8.5.app". When I did this, System Preferences pointed out that Dymo wouldn't have access until it was closed and re-opened. I closed it, re-opened DLS, and there were all my contacts.

BTW, I'm running OSX 10.9.2 on a MacBook with a fairly old Labelwriter 330 attached to a Windows 7 PC on my home network. It's now working fine from OSX and Windows. Hope this helps others.

Thanks very much for this helpful post. I was having the same problem as Alan but Mareich's advice was perfect.

You are welcome! I'm startled that my post from 2 1/2 years ago was still of use!

That was great info and so simple. Thanks!