DUPLICATE CONTACTS SCRIPT SUITE
by Allen Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
December 13, 2000
I've totally rewritten my script(s) for finding and fixing duplicate
contacts. This new script, "Duplicates Report," should replace my earlier
scripts named "Find Dupe Contacts" and "Flag All Dupe Contacts." The two
support scripts, "Select Flagged Contacts" and "Merge Contacts V2" remain
unchanged.
Taking a page from George Clark's book (he recently wrote a very specific
script for someone to delete duplicates that met certain restricted
criteria), I opted for simplicity and speed. The new script does not attempt
to do any fuzzy matching; it looks purely for an exact match on full name.
(The older scripts tried to do a simple fuzzy match on last name plus first
initial; or matching nicknames. Its efforts to be clever were its downfall,
because it found matches when there were none, and missed most of the real
matches.) It found over 100 pairs of duplicates in my file that the earlier
script missed.
It also does not attempt to do anything except <locate> the duplicates. Its
default action is to produce a report in a Simple Text text file listing the
names of every contact with duplicate entries, and the number of records
that belong to that contact, e.g.:
Allen Watson/2
John Doe/3
You can use this report to manually locate each pair in your address book,
merge the information in the records if necessary, and then delete one of
the two.
Please see the README file that accompanies the scripts on my web site for
more information (URL below). They are in the folder "Contacts" under
"Entourage", in a Stuffit archive named "Duplicate Contacts.sit". You will
also be able shortly to find these scripts on Erik B's site,
<http://www.applescriptcentral.com>.
--
Peace,
Allen Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> XNS name: =Allen Watson
A Mac family since 1984 <http://home.earthlink.net/~allenwatson/>
Applescripts for Outlook Express and Entourage:
<http://homepage.mac.com/allenwatson/>
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