How To Print Rolodex Cards From Your Mac
Posted 12/16/2010 at 3:54pm
| by Seamus Bellamy

I have been searching for a way to print my Mom's address book on pre-perforated Rolodex cards (at 85 she is very low tech), but cannot find a way; the print menu only lets me print an address only not the other info on the address book vcard. I discovered that there used to be a shareware program that could do this called Roll Call Directory. A google search found it, but all links are dead. Is there any other shareware/freeware out there, of can you tell me how I can do it myself? Maybe mailing labels in Pages, AppleWorks or Word then stick them on blank cards?
Low tech or not, there's nothing wrong with rocking an old school Rolodex. They're inexpensive, customizable, and best of all, never crash. We weren't able to find any software programs out there to assist you in automatically transforming your Mac's Address Book entries into a format that's Rolodex ready, but we have sorted out a method for you to easily transfer each of your Address Book application's entries to a Rolodex card one at a time, and for free no less!
If you've ever walked into a stationary supplies store or worked in an office, no doubt you'll be familiar with the myriad of labeling, printing and organizational solutions offered by Avery. One of the great things about Avery is that, not only do they produce labels and other associated office necessities, they also offer Microsoft Word-compatible templates to help consumers put those products to use. Does Avery have one that'll let you print to Rolodex-style rotary address book cards? You bet.

Navigate to their website, and enter Product # 5385 into the search field located in the top right corner of your browser window. The search will return a few results. Select "Small Rotary Card, 8 Per Sheet". For larger rotary cards that print three to a sheet, enter Product # 5386. If you've never downloaded a template from Avery before, you'll be asked to register before proceeding. Once that's done, the template be downloaded. Locate it the download location and double click it to open Microsoft Word. Open up your Mac's Address Book application and select the addresses you want to print to the cards.
Now all you have to do is get the information from your Address Book application on to the cards. You could do this by typing out each one, but we suggest using your Mac's built-in Grab application instead. Simply use Grab's Selection tool to draw a box around the Address Book information you want to appear on the card. Save the Grab screen capture to your Desktop with a name you'll be able to recognize. Now, locate the screen captured image and drag it into the template. Presto: Rolodex magic. You can repeat this process for as many addresses as you want to print. Speaking of Printing, in addition to offering a template that makes setting up rotary card entries a breeze, they also sell pre-perforated cardstock sheets that'll allow you to print off your Rolodex entries and set them up like a pro.

Oh, and if you happen to be an Outlook or Entourage for Mac user, Avery has made the process of setting up those Rolodex entries for printing even more simple than what we've suggested above. Avery's website offers a slick Print By Product option that will set up, format, and print your index cards using an online wizard. Just open the wizard up, feed it the same product number codes that we listed earlier and then upload your Exported Outlook/Entourage contacts as a text file. Within minutes, you'll have a PDF containing all of youre contacts formatted to fit on to Rolodex cards.
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