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Another question in my quest to convert from WinXP/Thunderbird to Kubuntu/Kontact:

Background:

A little over a year ago, I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird. In Outlook, I had categories assigned to all contacts; however, Outlook was unable to assign message filtering rules based upon contact categories. So, I created separate address books for each contact category, and assigned message filter rules based upon those address books.

When I switched to Thunderbird, I could still maintain each address book, and assign message filtering rules based upon address book - but Thunderbird did not keep the contact category assignments.

Now:

I have imported my mail message database successfully into KMail, and am attepmting to re-create my message filters. However, I cannot find a way to create/import individual address books (and looking at the filter options, it appears that "is in address book" criterion is available, but "is in address book 'X'" is not).

My "Contacts" address book in Thunderbird has roughly 1600 contacts - which are contained in several other address books (Family, Friends, Work, etc.).

Am I stuck with only the option to go through all 1,593 contacts in KAddressBook, and assigning categories? If it is my only option, I am willing to do so; but the task is rather daunting!

(Perhaps, if contact categories can be defined in bulk (e.g. selecting several contacts, and editing properties/categories), I could import one address book at a time, and then define categories for the contacts imported from each address book? Otherwise, I fear that I'm stuck doing it manually.)

Any ideas?

Following up:

I discovered that I can select multiple contacts, and then from the menu: Edit - Select Categories.

Just feeling my way around here... when I select several contacts, use Edit - Select Categories... and then select the appropriate category and click OK, I get a message: "Merge with existing categories?". I don't know what this question means, but through trial and error, found out that, in order for the category selection to apply as intended, I must select "Do Not Merge".

Can someone enlighten me regarding what this category-merging is?

Also, does Address Book have a configurable option to set all display names to "Reverse, with comma"?

Thanks in advance, again.