Printing Thunderbird Address Book
I have several Thunderbird Address Books, and wish to print some of them out on paper. On the address book screen, the names are listed Last Name first, in alphabetical order. But the Print Preview (and the Print) list them Last Name first (as it should), but alphabetizes the list according to First Name!! Example: Reynolds, Audrey is the first name on the printout, and Abernathy, Zack is the LAST name on the list.
I'm running the very latest version of Thunderbird on a Win7 Ultimate laptop, and am a looong-time user of Thunderbird. I've printed out lots of Address Books, and don't remember this problem in the past.
UPDATE: THE SAME VERSION OF T-BIRD RUNNING ON MY WIFE'S Win7 LAPTOP ALPHABETIZES PRINTOUTS PROPERLY!! As far as I can tell, the Options in her T-Bird are set the same as mine.
Please advise. engrollie
BTW: the Help search engine is tedious and unproductive. It searches for all messages that contain ANY of multiple search words. There should be an option to specify that the results must include only messages that contain ALL of the search words. Thanks
Modified by rehawkpe
All Replies (8)
Printing an address book is far more efficient if it's edited in a spreadsheet:
The answer has nothing to do with my problem. The address book in question STARTED as a spreadsheet, which I saved as .csv and imported into Thunderbird. It works fine for addressing group emails and things, but when I use the Print Address Book function, the results are as described in my original question. I CAN print the spreadsheet out directly, but there are so many columns (and rows) that printing all the information (with a readable font height) requires four sheets of 8-1/2x14 paper.
I can copy the same .csv file to my wife's laptop, import it into her Thunderbird, then Print Address Book, and it alphabetizes everything properly. It takes 12 sheets of 8-1/2x11 paper, but at least "Abernathy, Edward" is the first listing in the printout, instead of "Reynolds, Anna".
The Support answer that appeared in my email referenced a question asked by a ClaudiaSpaulding.
Please re-read my question.
Thanks, Bob Hawkins
After doing some tests, it appears the address book prints contacts in ascending alphabetical order of the Display Name, although the contact is listed as First Last or Last, First according to the Show Name As setting. It doesn't matter if the Sort by setting is ascending or descending. If this is unsatisfactory, it's recommended to print from a spreadsheet where the order and format is easily controlled. I cannot say what is different in the other machine that leads to different results.
I appreciate the response. I'd also suggest that Thunderbird revise their print routine to allow Sort by Last Name or First Name OR Display Name. That shouldn't be too difficult.
I have previously printed Address Books from Thunderbird, with the expected Sort results. I will go through the settings on both laptops to detect any differences.
It's totally surprising to me that I'm the only person to report this particular problem.
You're not the only one! I spent ages on line looking for a solution before I came across your post. Sorry to see that nobody seems to know how or why this happens. I have 180 contacts in my Thunderbird address book, and I'm trying to update my separate Jacquie Lawson eCards address book, which of course is in alphabetical order of surnames, as one would expect. It was turning out to be a needlessly tedious task, until I followed your suggestion to copy it to Excel. Thanks.
Modified by mikemead3
mikemead3 said
You're not the only one! I spent ages on line looking for a solution before I came across your post. Sorry to see that nobody seems to know how or why this happens. I have 180 contacts in my Thunderbird address book, and I'm trying to update my separate Jacquie Lawson eCards address book, which of course is in alphabetical order of surnames. It's turning out to be a needlessly tedious task! And I can't see any way to copy the address book to Excel. How do you do it?
In Address Book, Tools/Export... Save as type: comma separated (csv), then open the csv in a spreadsheet (Excel) or csv editor. Press Alt if the Tools menu is hidden.
I saw SFHowes reply just after I updated my earlier post! Thank you - that's exactly what I did!
you may use any tool here to save all Contacts of Address-Book, into a CSV/txt,etc file, then you can print that out, or load into Excel type software & change/print, etc.