Adding birthdays to address book

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I created a new field for birthdays on the address card but it won't accept the date when I try to type it in. When I click on 'birthday' a narrow box and another box with an up or down blue arrow appears but it is unresponsive.

It worked one time (don't know how) but the date appeared as December 31, 2000 (incorrect). The good news is that it is synchronized to iCalendar - wrong date but hey, that's progress!

Wish they would cover this topic under 'help'.

MacBook Pro Mac OS X Version 10.6.8
Address Book Version 5.0.3 (883)
 
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chas_m

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Add the birthdays to Address Book. Then, in iCal's preferences, tell it to add the Birthday Calendar. Done.
 
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adding birthdays to address book

Cannot add birthdays to address book. The birthday field is unresponsive.
 

dtravis7


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Are you going to the Card drop down and choosing Add Field and clicking on Birthday? That always works for me and adds a Birthday field.
 
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Yes, and the birthday field appears in the card okay but it won't accept anything. It gives off a little pong sound when I try to type something in.
 

dtravis7


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Agreed with Chas. If you are clicking edit, can you add to any other field?
 
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No the edit button isn't working for birthdays. On all other fields, the space turns blue and you can type in (or edit) the information...all except for birthdays. Thanks for all your time and patience. I guess I can live without the birthday function until the next time I'm at the Apple Storel
 

dtravis7


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I am wondering if maybe the plist file for Address book is messed up. You can try moving it to your desktop and then Address book will make a new one and see if that solves the issue.

The Address book plists are in User/Username/Library/Preferences. If you are running Lion, you have to go to the GO menu and hold down Option and the Library will appear. Be sure to move them to the desktop in case that does not fix it.
 
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I don't have Lion. I don't know where the GO menu is or even "User/Username/Library/Preferences". I'm lost. I went to Finder < Administrator < Library < Preferences. Is this what you are referring to? There is more than one: AddressBookMe.phlist & com.apple.AddressBook.plist. Is this what you are referring to?
 

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In Snow Leopard:

Click on the hard drive icon. Click on Users. Click on your Username. Click on Library, then on Preferences. Look for those files there.

Like I said, do not delete them but just move them to your desktop and then launch Address Book and see what happens.

Report back.
 
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I did what you suggested and when I went into address book I had lost many of my contacts. I went back and dragged the file back in off the desktop. The message came up "this will replace existing file" and I said ok. The address book with all the contacts came back to the original (much to my relief). I think I will leave things the way they are until I can take my computer into the shop.This is way beyond my expertise level. I do appreciate you taking the time to help. Thanks so much.
 

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That was why I had you move them to the desktop. Did you try the Birthday Field though when you did that to see if it worked with the new files?
 
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Yes, I opened Address Book each time to check if it would accept birthday entries and even restarted the computer. Didn't know if that was necessary but updates usually require a restart so I went ahead and did it. My Mac is 2 years old, my sister has an identical model which is 1 year old, and a friend has a brand new MacAir. They both can add birthdays. My sister said she would come over and set mine up. She fiddled for quite awhile and then said that there must be a problem with my Address Book.
 

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You have to type the birthday as followed:
05/03/1971
the day, the month, the year

I don't think that is true. I think the format that is used depends upon the date strings in System Preferences. That preference is currently in the Language & Text setting under Region. I think it has been in the Date and Time settings in the past.

I'm still puzzling out the OPs problem.
 

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I don't think that is true. I think the format that is used depends upon the date strings in System Preferences. That preference is currently in the Language & Text setting under Region. I think it has been in the Date and Time settings in the past.

I'm still puzzling out the OPs problem.

Ditto here. I have never had issues adding to the birthday field in Address Book. Do it all the time. I wonder if the OP gave up? Hope not.
 
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chas_m

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You have to type the birthday as followed:
05/03/1971
the day, the month, the year

This is not necessarily true, particular in the US. How dates are entered is controlled by System Preferences based on the country you selected (though it can be customized).
 
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I've been hunting all over the place for the solution to the problem and this thread solved it.

I could edit all fields except for birthdays and I couldn't figure out why.

The Day/Month/Year suggestion was the solution.

Problem is that I selected Canada as my country when I setup my computer. Technically, dates are supposed to be written as Day/Month/Year here, as with Europe, but most people follow the US convention of Month/Day/Year. It seems there are tons of people around having the same problem and they can't find the solution. I'm betting this is it.

Thanks to fourtake for the solution! I've been hunting for one for hours now.
 

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Problem is that I selected Canada as my country when I setup my computer. Technically, dates are supposed to be written as Day/Month/Year here, as with Europe, but most people follow the US convention of Month/Day/Year.

:) Our problem here in the US is we're probably the only country in the world that is still using the old English system of measures and dates. Even the UK has switched their system to metric and the more modern writing of dates.
 

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