I have been searching for a way to print my mom’s Address Book on perforated Rolodex cards -- at age 85, she is very low tech. Is there any shareware or freeware that can do this, or a handy way to do it myself with Pages or Word?
Low tech or not, there’s nothing wrong with rocking an old-school Rolodex. They’re inexpensive, customizable, and best of all, they never crash. We don’t know of any software that automatically transforms a Mac’s Address Book entries into a format that’s Rolodex-ready, but there’s an easy way to print each of your Address Book contacts to a Rolodex card using software you have and some affordable Avery cards. (In fact, if you have Office 2011 for Mac, you have a label wizard built in that will do this automatically -- more on that in a bit. If you have Word 2008 or earlier, read on.)
Avery should be a familiar name if you’ve ever worked in an office. Not only does it produce labels and other office necessities, it also offers Word-compatible templates for putting those products to use. Does Avery have one that’ll let you print to Rolodex-style rotary cards? You bet. Search avery.com for product #5385, and in the results, select Small Rotary Card, 8 Per Sheet. For larger rotary cards that print three to a sheet, enter product #5386. You can order perforated cardstock sheets from here or just download a free template (registration required). Double-click the template to open it in Microsoft Word.
Avery.com has a Print By Product feature that can read your Entourage or Outlook contacts lists.
Next, launch Address Book and select the contacts you want to print to the cards. Our favorite way to avoid an export-import dance to transfer the data from Address Book to Word is to take screenshots. Simply press Command-Shift-4 and use the selection tool to draw a box around the Address Book information you want to appear on the card. When you release your mouse button, that selection is saved to your Desktop. (Alternatively you can use Grab, the Mac’s built-in screenshot utility.) Now, just drag the screenshot into the template. Presto: Rolodex magic. You can repeat this process for as many addresses as you want to print.
But if you have Office 2011, it’s got you covered -- you don’t even need the template from avery.com. Go to File > New From Template, and then in the chooser window (under Print Layout View), select Labels > Labels Wizard. In the Wizard’s window, clicking the address-book button will grab not only your Outlook contacts, but your Address Book ones too.
The Label Wizard in Word 2011 has Avery-compatible templates and can bring in data from Address Book.
One more thing: Outlook and Entourage users have yet another option. Avery’s website offers a slick Print By Product feature that will set up, format, and print your index cards using an online wizard. Just 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 your contacts formatted to fit onto Rolodex cards. And you’re such a mensch for helping your mother.
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cboyce
February 18, 2011 at 11:24pm
If all you need is name and address you could use Address Book's built-in printing, saving you some serious trouble. Use the "mailing label" option and create a custom layout with 1 inch top and bottom margins, and 1.75 inch left and right margins. Three rows, one column. Easy. Of course it leaves out phone numbers and email addresses etc. but if names and addresses are all you need this is quick and easy.
jknowlton
February 07, 2011 at 12:20pm
wait, she has a rolodex but also has a Mac? She is not low-tech!
