Create a Contact in OSX Maverics with a range of phone numbers

I am a volunteer firefighter and receive my dispatches in text message form from a new number every incident. I wanted these dispatches to all come to me under one contact so that they would have a common name, in my situation "DISPATCH", but more importantly, I wanted to be able to modify the ring tone and vibrate quality to make these messages stand out from the rest of my communications.

I searched online "how to create a contact with a range of numbers" and came up with the simple answer of "you cant". Sorry, that's not good enough for me, so I pioneered a workaround for creating a contact with a range of numbers much more easily then manually adding each number into you phone or through your contacts app on your computer.

You will need:

Mac with contacts application

text editor

spread sheet application (I used Numbers)

Step 1: Create the contact

Fill in the fields that apply, for me I simply put DISPATCH in the company line and added a phone number. (made up for the tutorial)

Click Done and you have your contact.

Step 2: Modify the contact card

Drag and drop the contact card from your contacts application to your desk top.

The result will be a (.vcf) file. Right click this file and select "open with text editor."

You will now see this:

Highlight the row that starts with TEL and copy it. (Command + C)

Next open up your spread sheet application, I used Numbers. Edit the blank spread sheet to look like this:

You want 2 columns and as many rows as you have numbers. Paste the line of text from your text editor in the first column and paste the changing portion of the number in the second column. For example, my dispatch uses a 10 digit number. 1(AAA)BBB-XXX. The XXX is the variable, it changes every time. The XXX is the part of the number you want to put in column 2.

You can use Numbers to create consecutive numbers by adding 2 rows of consecutive numbers and then dragging the column down. Column 1 make sure and drag down the same information, not consecutive. End result should look like this:

Column 1 is all the same, while column 2 displays consecutive numbers.

(Command + A) select all, (Command + C) Copy.

Go back to your text editor and paste the information you just copied right under the original line of text we borrowed earlier.

You should now see something like this:

Don't mind the spaces in the numbers you pasted. They will not affect your contact. Now, save this file.

Step 3: Replace the contact

Delete the original contact in you contacts application and double click this new one you have created, it is on your desk top. It will ask you if you want to add it to your contacts and click yes.

Now open the contact in your contacts list and see all of the numbers that are listed under that contact. SUCCESS.

Moral of the story: Dont take, "its not possible" as an answer. This took me 15 minutes to accomplish when it could have taken me hours to manually input every number. My dispatch contact has 400 numbers, that should last me a while!