# The &kaddressbook; Handbook

David
C.
Bryant

    davidbryant@gvtc.com

2019
David C. Bryant
&CCBYSA4Notice;
2019-07-20
5.10.3 (Applications 18.12.3)

&kaddressbook; is part of the &kde; suite of personal information management (&PIM;) programs. &kaddressbook; is primarily an email address manager, but it can also help you keep track of your friends' and associates' telephone numbers, web sites, social media connections, snail-mail addresses, and more, besides. It's your one-stop shop for keeping track of all the people you know.

KDE
KAddressBook
kdepim
Email

## Introduction

&kaddressbook; is part of the &kde; suite of personal information management (&PIM;) programs. &kaddressbook; is primarily an email address manager, but it can also help you keep track of your friends' and associates' telephone numbers, web sites, social media connections, snail-mail addresses, and more, besides. It's your one-stop shop for keeping track of all the people you know!

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s primary &GUI; interface
A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s primary &GUI; interface

&kaddressbook;'s primary display. The Menubar is at the top, the Toolbar is next, and there are three Panels for data in the Text Area at the bottom.

&kaddressbook; has been integrated into the structure of &kmail;, the &kde; email client. So once you add a contact's name to &kaddressbook;, you can address an email message to that person by just typing in a portion of his name. Or if you receive an email message from somebody new, you can add him to your address book with just a few clicks of your mouse.

&kaddressbook; also permits you to maintain multiple separate contact lists in a wide variety of popular address list formats, either on your local hard disk, or via a resource residing in the cloud. It also supports importing and exporting contact data in `.csv` (Comma Separated Values), `.ldif` (LDAP Data Interchange Format), and `.vcf` (Virtual business Card Format) record formats.

## Getting Started

Here is a picture of the primary &kaddressbook; user interface before any address data have been entered. The first thing you may want to do is create an address book. Note that the Personal Contacts address book is present by default.

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s empty &GUI; interface
A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s empty &GUI; interface

&kaddressbook;'s empty &GUI; interface, before any extra address books have been created. The Personal Contacts address book is present when &kaddressbook; is first installed.

### How to Add a New Address Book

1. Open &kaddressbook;'s Add Address Book dialog with the File New >Add Address Book... option. A dialog box will appear.

   A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Add Address Book dialog A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Add Address Book dialog

   &kaddressbook;'s Add Address Book dialog. Five cloud services are supported, plus three local storage options.

2. Choose one of the options that appear in the dialog. Several of these options link to data collections residing in the cloud: DAV groupware (Distributed Authoring and Versioning, RFC4918), Google Contacts (your gmail.com account), Kolab groupware server (collaboration via &IMAP;), &Microsoft; Exchange Server EWS (Exchange Web Services, on servers running MS software), and Open-Xchange Groupware Server (an open-source alternative to MS EWS). If you already have access to one or more of these cloud-based resources, you can integrate those data into &kaddressbook; by simply selecting the option and then entering your login credentials.

   The remaining options in the dialog (Personal Contacts, vCard Directory, and vCard File) all create data sets that are saved on a local storage device. Each one of these options uses the same data format (`.vcf`, or Virtual Card Format), the only difference being in which particular directory the data are saved. The Personal Contacts and vCard Directory options create a separate file for each named contact you save; the vCard File option puts all the data into one file. It's probably easiest to start with the pre-defined Personal Contacts address book. You will not need more address books unless you have extensive contact lists you would like to keep separate.

3. Once you have made your selection, click on OK. If you have selected a cloud-based service a brief dialog will ensue, to establish communications between &akonadi; (the &PIM; cross-desktop storage service) and the selected cloud server. Here's what the dialog looks like for a Google (gmail.com) account. The other cloud-based services are slightly different, but similar.

   A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog

   &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog. Begin by clicking Add. A new dialog will appear. Once your credentials have been accepted, this screen will reappear, and you will click ✔ OK . If you would like &kaddressbook; to refresh the locally cached copy of your contact list automatically, do it here, before you click ✔ OK .

   A second screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog A second screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog

   Another picture of &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog. Enter your gmail.com address and click Next . You will be asked to enter your gmail password.

   A third screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog A third screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog

   Yet another picture of &kaddressbook;'s link-to-gmail dialog. Your account name and password have been accepted by Google's server. Read the privacy notice and press Allow , then ✔ OK in the Add dialog with which you started.

   Enter your login credentials as illustrated above and say OK. Voila! Your cloud-based contact list is now integrated into &kaddressbook;.

   The &kaddressbook; window after a gmail.com account has been added. The &kaddressbook; window after a gmail.com account has been added.

   Another picture of the &kaddressbook; window, after a gmail.com account has been added. You can now manipulate your gmail contacts via &kaddressbook;, if you like.

   As the preceding screenshot indicates, once you have registered &kaddressbook; as a trusted resource, you can view and edit your gmail contacts using &kaddressbook;. Of course, you may also continue to maintain your contacts by using a web browser, if you wish.

4. If you selected one of the local address book options in step 2 above, a different dialog will ensue.

   A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Personal Contacts dialog. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Personal Contacts dialog.

   &kaddressbook;'s Personal Contacts dialog. You may specify which directory will contain your data, and whether you have write access to this resource, or not. For most people, the default selections (as shown above) work well.

   Make any modifications you deem necessary in the Personal Contacts dialog, then click ✔ OK . A new address book will appear in the main &kaddressbook; interface window, as shown below.

   A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s main window with an empty Personal Contacts address book. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s main window with an empty Personal Contacts address book.

   &kaddressbook;'s main window after the Personal Contacts address book has been re-created.

### How to Add a New Contact

1. Open &kaddressbook;'s New Contact dialog by clicking the &plus; New Contact button on the Toolbar. A dialog box will appear.

   A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s New Contact dialog. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s New Contact dialog.

   &kaddressbook;'s New Contact dialog after clicking the &plus; New Contact button on the Toolbar.

2. As you can see from the preceding screenshot, the New Contact dialog allows one to enter several different data items. Additional data may be entered via the Location, Business, Personal, Notes, Custom Fields, and Crypto Settings sub-dialogs, as explained more fully in chapter 4, below. For now, let's concentrate on adding the Contact data items appearing in the preceding illustration.

3. If you have created more than one address book, use the drop-down list labeled Add to: to select the data set to which the new contact will be added. Then enter the new contact's name in the input field marked Name, and key in his or her email address in the input field labeled Email. If you want to specify special formatting options for this contact's name data, click the ... button to the right of the Name input field and follow the prompts. If you wish to add more email addresses for this person, click the &plus; button to the right of the Email input field and another Email input field will be generated. To delete an Email address, click the associated − button.

4. You may also associate a nickname, one or more telephone numbers, multiple instant messaging services, and several web sites with each contact in an address book, as explained in chapter 4. You may also use the Show messages ... and Allow remote content ... options to fine-tune the way &kmail; handles email you receive from each contact. See chapter 3 for a more complete explanation.

## Integration With Other &kde; Programs

### Integration Overview -- &kmail;

Because &kaddressbook; -- an essential piece of &PIM;, &kde;'s suite of Personal Information Management programs -- is the central repository for information about all your contacts, it has been integrated into &kmail; and also into &korganizer;. Here is a quick look at the interface between &kaddressbook; and those two programs.

#### Starting &kaddressbook; from &kmail;'s Tools Menu

A screenshot of &kmail;'s Tools Address Book option. A screenshot of &kmail;'s Tools Address Book option.

Launching &kaddressbook; from &kmail;'s Tools Address Book menu choice.

This interface is the epitome of simplicity. Need to consult or update the entry for one of your contacts while reading or composing an email message with &kmail;? Left click Tools Address Book , and the &kaddressbook; application will be launched automatically, allowing quick access to the contact data you want to view or modify.

#### Querying &kaddressbook; from &kmail;'s Message Composition Window

A screenshot of auto completion from inside &kmail;'s message composition window. A screenshot of auto completion from inside &kmail;'s message composition window.

Using &kaddressbook;'s auto completion feature from inside &kmail;'s message composition window.

When you are composing a new email message, &kmail; helps you find the recipient's complete email address by presenting a list of probable matches drawn from the contents of &kaddressbook; and from your email archives, as illustrated above. Just left click an item in the list to use that email address.

#### &kmail;'s Recipient Selection Dialog

A screenshot of the recipient selection dialog inside &kmail;'s message composition window. A screenshot of the recipient selection dialog inside &kmail;'s message composition window.

Selecting multiple addressees with the recipient selection dialog inside &kmail;'s message composition window.

When you are addressing a new email message to multiple recipients, &kmail; provides a convenient method of choosing multiple addressees from the contacts you have saved with &kaddressbook;. Simply left click the Select ... button to open a Drop Down Box that lists all the contacts in the selected address books. Then scroll through the list (or use the handy Search: box), select the recipient you want, and left click Add as To , Add as CC , or Add as BCC to add this person to the list of email recipients for your new message. Choose Add as Reply-To to insert this address into your message as a Reply To tag.

#### &kmail;'s New Contact Creation Interface

A screenshot of the new contact creation interface inside &kmail;'s message viewing window. A screenshot of the new contact creation interface inside &kmail;'s message viewing window.

Invoking the new contact creation dialog from &kmail;'s message viewing window.

When you receive an email message from someone who is not yet in your address book, &kmail; makes it very easy to create a new contact. Simply point your cursor at the email address you want to save, then click the &RMB; and a context menu will appear (see above). Select &plus; Add to Address Book to add the selected email address to one of your address books. If you recognize this person as somebody who's already in your address book, and he is using a new email address, you may click on &plus; Add to Existing Contact instead -- this enters a dialog that will direct &kaddressbook; to the spot where you want to insert the new email address.

A screenshot of the ensuing new contact creation dialog. A screenshot of the ensuing new contact creation dialog.

Choosing the address book in which the new contact will be created.

&kmail; will ask you to choose the address book to which the new contact should be added.

Another screenshot of the ensuing new contact creation dialog. Another screenshot of the ensuing new contact creation dialog.

Deciding if you would like to edit the newly created contact now, or later.

&kmail; will also ask you if you wish to edit the new contact that has just been added. Say ✔ Yes if you want to add more data to the new entry right away.

### &kaddressbook;'s Interface with &korganizer;

&korganizer;, the &kde; scheduling and calendar management program, allows you to send e-mail messages to people you want to invite to a meeting, and provides two interfaces with &kaddressbook; in this connection.

A screenshot of &korganizer;'s attendees tab. A screenshot of &korganizer;'s attendees tab.

Adding a single attendee to a scheduled meeting in &korganizer;.

The first interface is just like the auto completion feature provided by &kmail;: just start typing the name of the person you want to invite, and you will be presented with a list of probable matches, as illustrated above.

A screenshot of &korganizer;'s attendees tab. &korganizer;'s attendees tab.

Adding multiple attendees to a scheduled meeting in &korganizer;.

The second interface is just like the recipient selection dialog provided by &kmail;: when you left click the Select Attendees ... button, a searchable list of the contacts in all your address books will appear, as the preceding screenshot shows.

## Adding or Editing Contact Data

### The Basics

When you first click on the Add Contact button on &kaddressbook;'s Toolbar, this screen will appear. (If you click on Edit Contact , a similar screen appears, the only difference being that the drop-down box labeled Add to: will not appear as part of the Edit dialog. That is why both functions are covered in this chapter: they're practically identical.)

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s New Contact dialog. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s New Contact dialog.

&kaddressbook;'s Add Contact dialog after clicking the Add Contact button on the Toolbar.

#### The Contact Tab

We have already seen (in How to Add a New Contact ) how basic data like Name and Email are entered when a new contact record is created. Here's a description of the many ways to use the rest of the data fields accessible from the Contact tab in the Add Contact dialog.

Phone

  You may associate one or more telephone numbers with this person. Use the &plus; and − buttons to add or delete phone number fields. The Home Drop Down Box allows you to identify fifteen categories of phone numbers (Home, Work, Mobile, Car, ISDN, PCS, &etc;)

Messaging

  You may associate one or more Instant Messaging service identities with this person. Use the &plus; and − buttons to add or delete messaging service fields. The Select ... Drop Down Box permits you to identify thirteen categories of IM services: AIM, Facebook, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, GroupWise, ICQ, &irc;, Jabber, Meanwhile, SMS, Skype, Twitter, and Yahoo. (MSN Messenger is still on the list of IM services in version 5.10.3; it has been defunct since 2014.)

Web

  You may associate one or more web site &URL;s with this person. Use the &plus; and − buttons to add or delete Web address fields. The Select ... Drop Down Box allows you to identify three different kinds of Web addresses: Home, Work, and Other.

Tags

  You may associate one or more Tags of your own devising with this person. Use the ... button to enter the Tag creation and configuration dialog illustrated below.

&kaddressbook;'s Tags dialog. &kaddressbook;'s Tags dialog.

&kaddressbook;'s Manage Tags dialog after clicking the ... button next to Tags.

Tags (continued)

  Use the Create new tag button and the data entry field to the left to build your customized list of tags. Select the tags associated with this person from the list appearing in the configuration window. Press the ✔ OK button to add the selected tags to this contact.

Blog Feed

  Use this field to record the &URL; associated with this contact's web log, or blog.

Show messages ...

  Use this Drop Down Box to override the corresponding message display option in &kmail;'s Privacy & Security configuration menu. Choose Default to leave it up to &kmail;. Choose Plain Text or HTML if you want to override &kmail;'s default behavior when you receive a message from this person.

Allow remote content ...

  Select this option if you want to override the corresponding message display option in &kmail;'s Privacy & Security configuration menu when you receive a message from this person.

✔ OK

  Select this option to save the changes you have made. This button performs the same function in all seven tabs appearing in the Add Contact dialog.

⦸ Cancel

  Select this option to leave the Add Contact dialog without saving your changes. This button performs the same function in all seven tabs appearing in the Add Contact dialog.

#### The Location Tab

Use the data input fields in the Location tab shown below to associate one or more snail-mail addresses with this person.

&kaddressbook;'s Location tab. &kaddressbook;'s Location tab.

&kaddressbook;'s Location tab, part of the Add Contact dialog.

(unlabeled) Drop Down Box

  Use this list of categories to describe each mailing address for this contact. Available options include Home, Work, Postal, &etc;

Street / Post Office Box / Postal Code / Locality / Region

  Use these free-form data fields to enter mailing address data: Street Address, PO Box, ZIP Code, City, and State, respectively, for addresses in the U.S.A.

Country

  Use this Drop Down Box to select a country, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

This is the preferred address

  Check this box to designate the preferred, or default, mailing address.

Add Address

  When you have finished entering address data, left click this button to add a new address to the set of saved addresses appearing in the large display window to the right.

Icon in the large display window

  Left click this icon to edit the associated address data.

Icon in the large display window

  Left click this icon to delete the associated address data.

#### The Business, Personal, and Notes Tabs

The next three tabs in the Add Contact dialog are even simpler than the Location tab. They allow you to save some information about this person's business and professional affiliations, a few personal details, and miscellaneous free-form notes, respectively.

&kaddressbook;'s Business tab. &kaddressbook;'s Business tab.

&kaddressbook;'s Business tab, part of the Add Contact dialog.

The Business tab, shown above, lets you save some additional details about this person's professional and business associations. All the input fields are free-form; you may enter any kind of text data in each field. The small button will open a file search dialog, making it easy to associate a filename with this person's Free/Busy schedule, if you wish.

Notice that you should enter your business associate's phone as a telephone number under the Contact tab. Similarly, his office address is entered via the Location tab, as described in the preceding section.

&kaddressbook;'s Personal tab. &kaddressbook;'s Personal tab.

&kaddressbook;'s Personal tab, part of the Add Contact dialog.

Use this tab to store a few personal details: this person's birthday, his wedding anniversary, and the name of his partner, or significant other. Click one of the buttons (&eg;, ) to enter his date of birth, or his wedding anniversary.

&kaddressbook;'s Notes tab. &kaddressbook;'s Notes tab.

&kaddressbook;'s Notes tab, part of the Add Contact dialog.

The Notes tab provides a totally free-form input area in which you may enter any data you want to associate with this person.

### The Tricky Stuff

&kaddressbook; provides a couple of more complex data storage features, in addition to the simple functions described in the preceding section.

#### The Custom Fields Tab

Not happy with the wide array of data items that &kaddressbook; has already pre-programmed for you? Well, you're in luck. Someday -- maybe soon --you may utilize the Custom Fields dialog shown below to define and populate as many additional data fields as you can possibly use.

&kaddressbook;'s Custom Fields tab. &kaddressbook;'s Custom Fields tab.

&kaddressbook;'s Custom Fields tab, part of the Add Contact dialog.

This is an experimental feature which doesn't yet do anything worth talking about. So I'm not going to say anything else about it.

#### The Crypto Settings Tab

Need to send a confidential email message that ought not be read by prying eyes? &kaddressbook; provides a simple way for you to associate cryptographic keys with each person on your mailing list.

&kaddressbook;'s Crypto Settings tab. &kaddressbook;'s Crypto Settings tab.

&kaddressbook;'s Crypto Settings tab, part of the Add Contact dialog.

Allowed Protocols

  Choose which mode of encryption you wish to use when sending a message to this person: Inline OpenPGP, OpenPGP/&MIME;, S/MIME , or S/MIME Opaque.

Preferred OpenPGP Encryption Key:

  Use the Change... button to select from a list of available OpenPGP keys, if you have chosen OpenPGP encryption. Use the button to clear a previously selected key.

Preferred S/MIME Encryption Certificate:

  Use the Change... button to select from a list of available certificates, if you are using a verified key. Use the button to clear a previously selected key.

Message Preference / Sign:

  Use this drop-down box to specify when messages addressed to this person should bear your cryptographic signature: Never / Always / If Possible / Ask.

Message Preference / Encrypt:

  Use this drop-down box to specify when messages addressed to this person should be encrypted by using the selected protocol and key: Never / Always / If Possible / Ask.

## Command Reference

### The Menu Bar

Here is a rundown of the seven menus appearing on &kaddressbook;'s Menubar.

#### The File Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s File menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s File menu.

&kaddressbook;'s File menu after clicking the File button on the Menubar.

The File menu lets you access six main functions, three of which have several options.

&Ctrl;N File New >New Contact

  This has exactly the same effect as clicking the &plus; New Contact button on the Toolbar. See chapter 2 above for complete details.

&Ctrl;G File New >New Group

  Opens a dialog in which you may define a new group, or mailing list. See the appendix for a detailed explanation of this function.

File New > Add Address Book

  This opens the Add Address Book dialog, which is fully documented in chapter 2 above.

File Import >Import from LDAP server ...

  This function allows you to import data from an LDAP server. The server must be configured before you can use this function. See the appendix for full details.

File Import >Import CSV file ...

  This function allows you to import contact data from a comma separated values (csv) file. A dialog ensues, in which you may associate each field in the input file with a named field in &kaddressbook;'s internal storage record. See the appendix for a more detailed explanation.

File Import >Import vCard ...

  This function facilitates the importation of vcf, or vCard, data. All three versions of vCard are supported. You can learn more about the vCard formats at this web site.

File Export >Export CSV file ...

  This function allows you to export selected contact data as a Comma Separated Values (csv) file. There are 47 fields in the output record. Please refer to the appendix for a list of those data fields.

File Export >Export vCard 4.0 ...

  This function allows you to export selected contact data as a file in vCard 4.0 format. See this Wikipedia article for more information.

File Export >Export vCard 3.0 ...

  This function allows you to export selected contact data as a file in vCard 3.0 format. This format is similar to vCard 4.0 format.

File Export >Export vCard 2.1 ...

  This function allows you to export selected contact data as a file in vCard 2.1 format. This format is similar to vCard 3.0 format.

&Ctrl;P File Print

  Opens a printer selection dialog. Use the Print Preview dialog below to set up the range of names and the print format before you select this function.

File Print Preview

  Opens a print preview dialog, which also permits you to format the report, select which items to include, and specify a sort order, &etc; See the appendix for further details.

&Ctrl;Q File Quit

  Closes the &kaddressbook; application.

#### The Edit Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Edit menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Edit menu.

&kaddressbook;'s Edit menu after clicking the Edit button on the Menubar.

The Edit menu lets you access eight main functions, two of which have multiple options.

Edit Edit Contact ...

  This has nearly the same effect as clicking the &plus; New Contact button on the Toolbar. The difference is that this menu item allows you to edit a contact record that already exists, instead of creating a brand new one. See chapter 2 above for complete details.

&Ctrl;X Edit Cut Contact ...

  Performs a Cut operation on the selected contact. A copy of this contact, in vCard 3.0 format, is placed on the clipboard. The Cut will be completed when you Paste this contact somewhere.

Edit Copy Contact ...

  Places a copy of this contact on the clipboard, so you can paste it somewhere else.

&Ctrl;V Edit Paste

  Pastes the cut or copied contact at the current location. This may be in the same address book you did the Cut or Copy from, or in another address book. Since the preceding operations placed the contact information on the system's clipboard, you may also paste it somewhere else besides &kaddressbook; (&eg; into a text editor, or as a vCard 3.0 file in your home folder).

Edit Copy Contact To >(a variable list)

  Combines the Copy and Paste operations into a single click of the &LMB;. The list of destinations displayed depends on how many address books you have created.

Edit Move Contact To >(a variable list)

  Works just like the Copy Contact To operation described above, except that it combines Cut and Paste into a single click of the &LMB;.

&Del;Edit Delete Contact

  Delete the selected contact from the current address book.

Edit Delete Address Book

  Delete the current address book. Be careful with this command -- you could lose some data! In theory, this function simply removes the symbolic link between &kaddressbook; and the associated vCard file or directory (or the hyperlink to a cloud-based service), and the real data will not be altered. Still, it's probably wisest to make a backup copy of this address book somewhere before you delete it.

#### The View Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s View menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s View menu.

&kaddressbook;'s View menu after clicking the View button on the Menubar.

The View menu lets you access four main functions, and one experimental feature which doesn't really do anything yet.

View Themes >

  This menu item doesn't really do anything. It will open a Themes dialog, but that dialog is broken in release 5.10.3.

&Ctrl;&Shift;1 View Simple (one column)

  Changes the default three panel layout into a single column. For more details, see the appendix.

&Ctrl;&Shift;2 View Two columns

  Changes the default three panel layout into two panels. For more details, see the appendix.

&Ctrl;&Shift;3 View Three columns

  Switches back to the default three panel layout.

View Show QR Codes

  Check this box to display contact information as a QR code. Uncheck it to suppress QR codes.

#### The Action Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Action menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Action menu.

&kaddressbook;'s Action menu after clicking the Action button on the Menubar.

The Action menu lets you access two data transmission functions.

Action Send vCards...

  This option is similar to Send an email..., below, except that after you select some contacts with &Ctrl; and your mouse, the message composition window will open with a blank list of addressees, and with files attached (the selected contacts, in vCard 3.0 format). This makes it easy to share selected &kaddressbook; information with your friends and business associates.

Action Send an email...

  This option provides an alternate method for setting a new email message's recipient list. Press &Ctrl; (or &Shift;) and select the people to whom you wish to send the new message, by using your &LMB;. Then click on Send an Email...; this will open a &kmail; composition window. All the selected contacts will be listed as To addressees.

#### The Tools Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Tools menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Tools menu.

&kaddressbook;'s Tools menu after clicking the Tools button on the Menubar.

The Tools menu lets you access two data management functions.

Tools Merge Contacts...

  This tool allows you to merge the contents of two or more &kaddressbook; records. To activate it, you must first select two or more contacts (hold &Ctrl; or &Shift; and left-click contacts to make your selection). A dialog box will appear, asking you to verify which contacts you wish to combine, and where the merged record should be saved. Click merge to complete the operation.

Tools Search Duplicate Contacts...

  This tool will search one or more address books for duplicate entries, and offer you the option of merging any duplicate records it finds.

#### The Settings Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Settings menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Settings menu.

&kaddressbook;'s Settings menu after clicking the Settings button on the Menubar.

The Settings menu offers you five options for fine-tuning the way &kaddressbook; operates.

SettingsShow Menubar &Ctrl;M

  This option allows you to show or hide the Menubar.

Settings Show Toolbar

  This option allows you to show or hide the Toolbar.

Settings Configure Shortcuts...

  This option allows you to customize the keyboard shortcuts available within &kaddressbook;. See the appendix for more details.

Settings Configure Toolbars...

  This option allows you to customize the contents of &kaddressbook;'s Toolbar. See the appendix for more details.

Settings Configure &kaddressbook;... &Ctrl;&Shift;,

  This option allows you to configure several advanced &kaddressbook; options. See the appendix for more details.

#### The Help Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Help menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Help menu.

&kaddressbook;'s Help menu after clicking the Help button on the Menubar.

The Help menu offers seven options.

Help&kaddressbook; Handbook F1

  This option displays a copy of The &kaddressbook; Handbook via the &khelpcenter; utility program.

Help What's This?&Shift; F1

  This is &kaddressbook;'s built-in help tool. Left-click this option, then move your cursor and click on any one of the first four items on the Toolbar. A brief description of that tool's function will be displayed.

Help Report Bug

  This option opens a dialog that helps you file a bug report at bugs.kde.org, &kde;'s main bug tracking page.

Help Donate

  This opens a web page in your browser, where you may donate money to support &kde;. We accept euros, dollars, rubles, sterling, yen, yuan, pesos, &etc;

Help Switch Application Language

  This option lets you change the language that is used to label the various menu items and built-in help screens. You must quit &kaddressbook; and restart it before the new language takes effect.

Help About &kaddressbook;

  Click on this item to learn which release of &kaddressbook; you're running, which libraries were used to compile / build the executable code, and who the lead &kde; programmer is.

Help About &kde;

  This option displays information about &kde;. Be free!

### The Tool Bar

There are five separate tools available on &kaddressbook;'s Toolbar: New Contact, New Group, Edit Contact, Search..., and a category filter. Here's a picture. (Note that I have only documented the default version of &kaddressbook;'s Toolbar. You may alter the Toolbar layout by using the Settings menu, if you so desire.)

A closeup of &kaddressbook;'s Toolbar. A closeup of &kaddressbook;'s Toolbar.

&kaddressbook;'s standard Toolbar, up close and personal.

New Contact

  This Toolbar button opens the Add New Contact dialog documented in chapter 4, above.

New Group

  This Toolbar button opens the Add New Group dialog documented in the appendix.

Edit Contact

  This Toolbar button opens the Edit Contact dialog documented in chapter 4, above.

[ Search... &Alt;Q ]

  This tool searches through all the contacts in selected address books as you type. Pressing &Alt;Q simply positions the cursor inside the Search... box. Be aware that this function searches the entirety of each contact record; a search for and may return not only Andy Brown and Andrew Jones, but also Bill Smith (who happens to work for Brown and Root Construction Company).

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Search function. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Search function.

&kaddressbook;'s Search function in action.

[ (All) ]

  This tool performs a filtering function, based on categories. The two default categories are Untagged and Groups. You can create new categories by associating Tags of your own devising with particular contact records (see Add New Contact in chapter 4, above). Clicking either button will set the selected categories to None; the button will reset the selection criteria to All.

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Filter function. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Filter function.

&kaddressbook;'s Filter function in action.

### The Context Menus

When you click the &RMB; anywhere inside the main Text Area, a context menu will appear, as illustrated below. The particular menu that appears depends on both the panel within which the right-click occurred and the particular data item that was selected, if any.

#### The Address Book Context Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Address Book context menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Address Book context menu.

&kaddressbook;'s Address Book context menu.

Add Address Book Folder...

  This context menu option does not perform a useful function in release 5.10.3.

Delete Address Book Folder

  This context menu option does not perform a useful function in release 5.10.3.

Add Address Book...

  This context menu option launches the Add Address Book dialog that is documented in chapter 2, above.

Delete Address Book

  Choosing this context menu option will delete the selected address book. Be careful!

F5 Update Address Book Folder

  This context menu option forces &kaddressbook; to reload the contact data associated with the selected address book.

Folder Properties...

  This context menu option displays summary information about the selected address book.

Address Book Properties...

  This context menu option displays summary information about the selected address book.

Serverside Subscription...

  This context menu option may or may not perform a useful function in release 5.10.3; so far as I can tell, it is permanently grayed out. If you understand what it does, please let me know (davidbryant AT gvtc.com).

#### The List of Contacts Context Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Contact List context menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Contact List context menu.

&kaddressbook;'s Contact List context menu.

&Ctrl;N New Contact

  Choosing this context menu option has exactly the same effect as clicking the &plus; New Contact button on the Toolbar. See chapter 2 above for complete details.

&Ctrl;G New Group

  Choosing this context menu option opens a dialog in which you may define a new group, or mailing list. See the appendix for a detailed explanation.

Edit Contact ...

  Choosing this context menu option has exactly the same effect as clicking the Edit Contact... button on the Toolbar. See chapter 2 above for complete details.

Export >

  This context menu function allows you to export selected contact data in either vCard or csv format.

Copy Contact To >

  This context menu choice lets you copy the selected contact(s) to a variable destination. The list of destinations displayed when this option is chosen depends on how many address books you have created.

Move Contact To >

  Works just like the Copy Contact To operation described above, except that it deletes the source data, instead of creating an extra copy of it.

&Ctrl;P Print

  Choosing this context menu item opens a printer selection dialog. Use the Print Preview dialog below to set up the range of names and the print format before you select this function.

Print Preview

  This context menu option opens a print preview dialog, which also permits you to format the report, select which items to include, and specify a sort order, &etc; See the appendix for further details.

&Del;Delete Contact

  Delete the selected contact(s) from the current address book.

#### The Individual Contact Context Menu

A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Individual Contact context menu. A screenshot of &kaddressbook;'s Individual Contact context menu.

&kaddressbook;'s Individual Contact context menu.

Depending on which data item you select, the caption in this context menu may vary. But in every case, the function is the same: the selected data item is copied to the clipboard.

AIM

  AIM stands for America Online Instant Messaging. AIM was an early leader in the competitive IM marketplace, but fell into disfavor as AOL itself became less popular. The original service was discontinued in 2017, but fans have kept it running at this web site.

&akonadi;

  An extensible cross-desktop storage service for &PIM; data and meta data providing concurrent read, write, and query access. &akonadi; can be manipulated with the akonadictl command: enter akonadictl --help in a console window to learn more.

Cloud-based service

  Any provider of data storage and data processing resources residing in some cloud of servers one may access via the internet.

.csv

  A Comma Separated Values (or `.csv`) file is a plain text document in which each line, or record, is divided into fields by a specific separator character, usually a comma. The `.csv` format dates back to the early days of computing. It is still widely used, mainly because it is conceptually so simple.

DAV

  DAV stands for Distributed Authoring and Versioning, which exists in several flavors, such as WebDAV (for creating pages on the internet), GroupDAV (for groupware, open source software authored by a group of collaborators), and CalDAV (calendar management for groups), each one of which helps connect open source clients with open source servers.

DIGEST-MD5

  DIGEST-MD5 is an authentication technique used to set up secure communications between a client and an internet service. It gets its name from the MD5 hashing function used to encode the client's credentials. See this Wikipedia article to learn more about it.

EWS

  EWS stands for Exchange Web Services, &Microsoft;'s set of proprietary protocols for exchanging personal data between internet servers and end users, or clients. Kolab provides similar functionality.

Gadu-Gadu

  Gadu-Gadu (aka GG) is the most popular instant-messaging app in Poland.

GMX

  GMX stands for Global Mail eXchange (or, in Germany, Global Message eXchange), a free advertising-supported email service. Visit either this web site or this one to learn more about it.

Gravatar

  A Gravatar, or Globally Recognized Avatar, is a graphic image associated with a WordPress user's email address. It is usually displayed as an 80px X 80px graphic image. Since many bloggers use WordPress software, the Gravatar is widely available.

GroupWise

  GroupWise Messenger is an instant messaging service sponsored by Micro Focus International plc, a software company located in Newbury, Berkshire, England. You can get a copy of the Messenger software from this web site.

GSSAPI

  GSSAPI stands for Generic Security Service Application Program Interface, a sort of dictionary for the many security protocols in use on the internet. It consists of a program library and a set of standard subroutine calls that allow an internet client to determine which particular security protocol an internet service is using, and then to encode/decode the user's credentials appropriately.

ICQ

  ICQ is not precisely an acronym: it's a pun meant to sound like I Seek You. It is one of the original IM platforms, first coming online in 1996. The software is available for download here.

&IMAP;

  &IMAP; stands for Internet Message Access Protocol, a widely available method for managing email messages. &IMAP; maintains and synchronizes local and remote copies of a set of messages -- in other words, the locally stored data for an &IMAP; account are a mirror image of the messages on the server.

Inline OpenPGP

  Inline OpenPGP is an encryption protocol in which PGP signatures are directly embedded in the body of the email message. This protocol is deprecated because of technical difficulties caused by the indiscriminate use of non-ASCII characters in plain-text email messages.

&irc;

  &irc; stands for Internet Relay Chat, an IM service that has its roots in a Finnish predecessor of the World Wide Web called OuluBox (1988). &irc; has been losing users steadily for many years as social media platforms like Facebook have become more popular. The largest remaining network is known as Freenode; it can be accessed via this web site.

ISDN

  ISDN stands for Integrated Services Data Network, the very first set of telecommunication standards that permitted the simultaneous transmission of analog voice signals and digital data signals over a switched network of copper wires (&ie; the old-style telephone system). ISDN was unavoidable in the early days of the Internet, but has lately been supplanted by more robust technologies that permit unswitched connections over networks that utilize fiber optic cables, satellites, and very high frequency microwave transmitters / receivers. It is still widely used in a few industrial applications where a direct point-to-point connection is necessary, but is on the way out in the broader consumer market.

Jabber

  Jabber is an instant-messaging service that relies on the XMPP protocol. The original Jabber web site is no longer accepting new registrations, but the XMPP protocol is in widespread use. See this web site for more information.

&kmail;

  &kde;'s email management program. Provides a fully integrated environment for sending and receiving email messages from one (or more) email account(s), maintaining as many email identities as you want to have, organizing and archiving your old email messages, and managing your personal email encryption keys.

Kolab

  Kolab Systems AG is a corporation headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland that provides both proprietary and open source software tools to facilitate collaboration among groups of people who share data, messages, and calendaring / scheduling resources via the internet. EWS provides similar, though wholly proprietary, software packages.

LDAP

  The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (or ldap) is a standard protocol, or method, for sharing some particular classes of information among the many server computers that comprise the internet.

.ldif

  An LDAP Data Interchange Format (or `.ldif`) file is a type of plain text file designed for exchanging directory information among the various servers in a distributed network.

Meanwhile

  Meanwhile is open source software designed to communicate with IBM's Sametime instant messaging software. See this web site if you want to learn more about it.

&MIME;

  &MIME; stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, a set of coding conventions designed to make email messages more flexible by enabling features like extended character sets, embedded images, rich text coding, &etc; The original email coding conventions supported nothing besides plain text (or encrypted) messages written with 7-bit ASCII code. Almost all contemporary email messages are &MIME; encoded.

OpenPGP/&MIME;

  OpenPGP/&MIME; refers to an encryption convention for &MIME; encoded email messages. A special set of &MIME; headers are wrapped around the PGP signature, allowing an email client program to conceal the signature when the message is displayed.

Open-Xchange Groupware Server

  Open-Xchange AG is a corporation headquartered in Cologne, Germany that provides both proprietary and open source software tools to facilitate collaboration among groups of people who share data, messages, and calendaring / scheduling resources via the internet. EWS and Kolab provide similar software packages.

PCS

  PCS stands for Personal Communication Service, which is basically a cell phone with some extra functionality built in. PCS phones operate on a higher frequency band than traditional cell phones, which implies that they can provide more bandwidth than older cell phones.

PGP

  PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy, a data-encryption program that was released by Philip Zimmerman in 1991. Most email encryption software in use today employs some variant of PGP to encrypt, decrypt, and cryptographically sign messages.

&PIM;

  &kde;'s Personal Information Management system, a suite of programs to help you manage your contacts and your schedule. &PIM; includes &kontact;, &kmail;, &kaddressbook;, &korganizer;, &akregator;, and &akonadi;. Also used more generally to describe any system for managing personal information such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, &etc;

QR Code

  QR Code stands for Quick Response Code, a two-dimensional barcode used to represent digital data. It was invented in Japan in 1994 for use by automobile manufacturers, but has spread far and wide, so that it is ubiquitous today.

SASL

  SASL stands for Simple Authentication and Security Layer, a framework for client authentication (passwords and usernames) and data security (encrypted connections). It supports more than a dozen different protocols.

S/MIME

  S/MIME stands for Secure / Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, a standard cryptographic method for signing, encrypting, abd decrypting email messages. Unlike PGP, which uses private keys, S/MIME uses publicly published encryption keys certified by a Certificate Authority, such as Verisign.

S/MIME Opaque

  S/MIME Opaque stands for the opaque version of Secure / Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. It is similar to the S/MIME format defined above, but the entire contents of the message are rolled up into a single &MIME; object. (Most &MIME; encoded email messages consist of two or more separate &MIME; objects.)

SMS

  SMS stands for Short Message Service, a text-messaging service built into most telephone, internet, and mobile device communication networks. It facilitates the exchange of text messages that are less than 161 bytes long.

SSL

  SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, a deprecated cryptographic protocol that has been largely supplanted by TLS.

TLS

  TLS stands for Transport Layer Security, a cryptographic protocol that is widely used to secure internet communications. Its primary function is to allow a client and a server to exchange enough information securely that they can set up a pair of encryption / decryption keys for use during the rest of the internet session. TLS is the weakest link in the chain connecting a client program to a secure (encrypted) internet service. It has been the target of several hacking exploits, and it has been revised several times in response to those attacks.

.vcf

  The Virtual (business) Card Format (or `.vcf`) is a keyword-oriented data interchange format that has gone through several iterations (2.0, 2.1, 3.0, &etc;) since its introduction ca. 1990. The most recent version is vCard 4.0.

XMPP

  XMPP stands for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, the basic technological underpinning for the Jabber instant messaging service.

&docbook-reference;