[Macworld]

Post your comments for Automator workflow of the month: Export contacts to Excel here

[rcgregory]

Love this workflow, but is there a way to export ALL address book contacts to Excel. I can't seem to find a wildcard option that makes the export happen with this flow....

THANKS

[Chris Breen]

 rcgregory, on 02 July 2012 - 07:51 AM, said:

Love this workflow, but is there a way to export ALL address book contacts to Excel. I can't seem to find a wildcard option that makes the export happen with this flow....

You could cheat by using an IS NOT condition in the first action. So. ZIP Code Is Not ABCDE. The action should then see that all of your contacts can be acted on, because none of them have ABCDE in the ZIP Code field.

[stuzog]

For this workflow to work, Excel has to be already running. Is there any way of getting it to work with Numbers?

[Chris Breen]

 stuzog, on 02 July 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

For this workflow to work, Excel has to be already running.

That's incorrect. Excel will launch it it's not already running. For this to work with Numbers you'd need an AppleScript or action written specifically for Numbers.

[Slartibartfast]

 stuzog, on 02 July 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

For this workflow to work, Excel has to be already running. Is there any way of getting it to work with Numbers?

Numbers isn't technically AppleScript-able but it can be somewhat scripted via "system event" keystrokes. This is automating via keyboard actions like you were issuing the commands yourself. This is a quick and dirty Applescript with no error trapping but it'll work. You'll want to clean up the results in Numbers afterwards.

Select all of the script below and paste into a "Run Applescript" automator action. This one automator action will replace the last two automator actions in Chris's workflow.

on run {input, parameters}
tell application "System Events"
set UI elements enabled to true
end tell

tell application "Numbers"
activate

tell application "System Events" to keystroke "n" using command down -- create new file
delay 1
tell application "System Events" to keystroke return -- select default template
delay 1
tell application "System Events" to key code 123 -- move to the left one cell
delay 1
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down -- paste contents of the clipboard.


end tell
return input
end run

[prmorel]

The "Get Contact Information" module only works properly when I execute the workflow from within automator.

Problem: This action module has checkboxes. I would like to get the "Company" field and I would like to not get the "Instant Messaging" field. If I execute the module from automator, I get exactly what is checked. However, if I launch the workflow as a service from any application (I tried with Excel and Finder) I do not get the "company" field and I get the "instant Messaging" field even though I unchecked it.

Of course, the simple solution is to always run the workflow from within automator, but does it not defeat the purpose of a "service"?

Please note that I use a French version of OS X and a US English version of Excel. However, this should not be causing a problem, because the workflow works fine when I execute it from within automator.

[bjmac]

How would I go about importing the edited results from Excel back into Address Book? I have accumulated over 800 contacts over the years, and would like to cull these in Excel, and replace all my Address Book entries with the edited in Excel results.

[ZoeKaczorowski]

 bjmac, on 08 July 2012 - 04:16 AM, said:

How would I go about importing the edited results from Excel back into Address Book? I have accumulated over 800 contacts over the years, and would like to cull these in Excel, and replace all my Address Book entries with the edited in Excel results.

Just import it into Address book - it doesn't have any problems importing a csv, only exporting one...

[streettwanderer]

Quote

Love this workflow, but is there a way to export ALL address book contacts to Excel. I can't seem to find a wildcard option that makes the export happen with this flow.... THANKS

Use the @ symbol - it will export any info that contains it, and if email is one of the fields you are exporting, that will capture everything.

[streettwanderer]

Update for Mountain Lion users - Automator no longer has Find Address Book Items as an option under Contacts - it has been renamed Find Contact Items

[wheat123]

I do not see a "documents library" on my Automator, nor any other way to navigate to excel. Running Mac OS 10.7.5

[tf76]

This is great thanks. However when mine exports to Excel the Email addresses are missing, the emails being the most important piece of info i'd like to have. (I did check email on the Contact Information list.)

Any ideas?