Managing Contacts

To create or edit contacts, KAddressBook offers a dialog where you can input all the data that can be stored in a vCard.


The Contact Dialog.

The Contact Dialog.


Automatic Name Parsing

KAddressBook tries to provide an easy name input by automatic name parsing; for this to work properly it is sometimes necessary to add custom name prefixes, suffixes or inclusions in the configure dialog. Nevertheless, no algorithm is perfect, so the name you enter may be parsed incorrectly; in this case, you can disable the automatic name parsing in the name edit dialog, which is available by clicking the Name... button in the contact dialog. If you wish to disable the name parsing for all new contacts you can disable automatic name parsing globally in the configure dialog.

Formatted Name

The formatted name of a contact is used by other programs to represent it. KAddressBook offers three predefined types of formatted names:

SimpleName

<given name> <family name>;

FullName

<prefix> <given name> <additional name> <family name> <suffix>;

ReverseName

<family name>, <given name>.

If none of the above types fit your needs you can select the Custom name type, where you can add your own formatted name — this configuration can be done in the name edit dialog. To specify a default formatted name type for new contacts, use the configure dialog.