Importing vCards from Entourage, Adding a Reply-To Header, and the Unshown Drawer Bug in Mail

Since Dan Knight, our publisher, has started opening up his mailbag, we at The Practical Mac thought that we should do the same. Drum roll, please....

In my last column, I lamented the fact that it was so difficult to import contact information from Entourage to the Apple Address Book. Alert reader Mark McKean offered the following solution, which he had just read in MacAddict:

Regarding your column about Jaguar, I had the same confusion you did regarding importing Entourage contacts into Address Book. What's amusing is that the answer is so simple and yet is hardly anywhere documented.

Entourage stores contacts as vCards. Address Book can import vCards. The trouble is that Entourage doesn't offer any apparent option for exporting those vCards out of the Contacts file.

Thanks to a tip in MacAddict, though, I found the solution. If you open Contacts in Entourage and Select All in the list of contacts, you can drag them out to the Finder, where they become individual vCard files. Address Book can import those easily.

In that same column, I complained about not being able to add a different "reply-to" address to message in Mail. Several readers wrote to point out that this is possible. When you compose a message, go to Edit > Add Reply-to Header. This will allow you to designate a different reply-to address, though it has to be done with each new message you create. I am still hoping that Apple will build the ability to do this on a global basis into a future version of Mail.

Reader Walter also suggested an easier way to import addresses into Address Book:

Go to Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts and pick ImportAddresses.scpt.

Click 'run' and pick the program you want to import from, and you'll get everything neatly imported with just one click.

In a previous article I stated that there were products available to securely erase files before you sold or donated your Mac, but I did not specify any. One such product is CopyAgent by Connectix. It currently only supports OS 8.5-9.x, although the Connectix website states that an OS X version is "under investigation."

While I was pointing out some Jaguar shortcomings that I had discovered, a couple of readers alerted me to some I did not discover.

Robert Livingston and Pam Martin pointed out what I consider to be a serious glitch in Mail:

One feature that has caused me problems because I support users who are not "robust" in their confidence with computers is the drawer in Mail.

Hit the Green button to enlarge to full screen. Then say choose from the menu "Show Drawer". The pop-out drawer never is visualized.

This is especially troublesome if you are trying to support remote users via telephone. When you tell them to choose "show drawer," are you really going to believe them when they say, "But nothing happened!" I never noticed this because I keep the drawer out all the time and I have never maximized Mail. This does seem like it would be a fairly simple bug fix, so I expect something will be done about it shortly.

Primarily because I don't use a scroll mouse, I missed this problem, sent in by Tim Donovan:

My main complaint with Jaguar is that scrolling mice don't work on Classic apps (notably Acrobat and Office 2001). I've had the same problem with the MS Intellimouse and the Wacom Intuo 2. Either will work in 9.2.2, but only if I boot in that OS . . . drives me nuts . . . hope there's a fix soon.

Time to close up the old mailbag. Keep those cards and letters coming!