Incredible, Contacts --> Display Name. Needs switched!

[dag1911]

I was wondering if anyone knows how to switch the entire conact list to show first name then last name...ex John Doe as opposed to Doe, John? 

It only switched to this method after I had synced my Microsoft Outlook account to the phone.  I much prefer to search by first name.  I also tried NOT displaying the Exchange ActiveSync contacts and they were all still displaying last, first names.  I would appreciate any help with this!!  Thanks guys.  Oh and by the way....I love my Incedibl!! lol

[kenyu73]

I don't think its possible. From what I see, the contacts are stored as one line item(string).

Perhaps there are .cvs programs on the internet that will allow you to rearrange the order?

OR

Open the .cvs in Excel, edit the data there (move column or change header...)... then import into Gmail.

[Iceman1906]

Changing or adding column headers in the .cvs file will cause the droid not to be able to read the .cvs file when it's imported back into Google. What headers in the .csv file is determined by what fields your droid phones displays when you click edit in contacts.

[dag1911]

So you are saying I just need to go in and manually edit each and every contact?!  Dang it....could take a while.

[Iceman1906]

You don't have to change each individual contact. If you export it to excel, you can use a merging formula on all the contact's F. Name and L. Name columns at the same time. This will merge them into one column with first name last name.

header >	First Name	Last Name	Email Address	Street Address	Phone
contact info. >	Jane	Doe	jane@gmail.com	623 East 68th Street, Apt. 3-B, New York, NY	(212) 555-9975

header >	Name		Email Address	Street Address	Phone
contact info. >	Jane Doe		jane@gmail.com	623 East 68th Street, Apt. 3-B, New York, NY	(212) 555-9975

The headers have to be labeled just like your phonebook in your phone or they may not read when you import the .cvs file back into google. Headers that are incorrectly labeled will be automatically pull into your contacts under my notes.

[budone]

Were your contacts stored F.name/L name on your old phone??  Mine were and that is how they loaded.

I would maybe follow the direction of swapping columns in the .csv file and see what happens. If it does not work,  you can reload the old .csv file to get back what you had.

[kenyu73]

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budone wrote:

Were your contacts stored F.name/L name on your old phone??  Mine were and that is how they loaded.

I would maybe follow the direction of swapping columns in the .csv file and see what happens. If it does not work,  you can reload the old .csv file to get back what you had.

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It's not stored in columns as I thought, they're stored like this - 

BEGIN:VCARD
FN:John Smith

N:John Smith;
TEL;PREF;MOBILE:5185551234
END:VCARD

FN = First Name (LN=LastName is missing)

N = the display string in Andorid

I bet if you import them to say.. Outlook, you could probably change the "display" format and then re-export them and into Android.

[dag1911]

No it was not stored that way on the old phone, the old phone was 2.5 years old.  I don't think they had that technology back then!!  Although within Microsoft Outlook...there are some contacts that have the last name, first name.  So I am thinking that Outlook over-rode how my current contacts are displayed.  I also loaded my Outlook exchange account secondly, after I had used back up assistant to load old phone contacts.

[kenyu73]

VCARD is the industry standard and  has been around since the 90's, but that doesn't mean all proprietary systems used it!

However, every real contact system supports it today. Anyhow, I think if you just play around with the export file with Outlook (or Gmail), you'll figure out something better then manually changing them... however, by the time you do figure it out... it would have been quicker to just manually change it... haha...

[dag1911]

Haha I am sure you are correct!  Alright I will mess around with it and see if I can figure anything out.  If so, I will post it.  Thanks for all your help!  Have a good one

[budone]

Hey, an option I forgot about that I did to load my contacts.

I went to MY Verizon and imported the .csv file there and let it Sync to the phone automatically. I cant remember if it asked there how I wanted the info displayed.

[budone]

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budone wrote:

Hey, an option I forgot about that I did to load my contacts.

I went to MY Verizon and imported the .csv file there and let it Sync to the phone automatically. I cant remember if it asked there how I wanted the info displayed.

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An update to this post. YES if you import your contacts into Verizon Backup Assistant. You ARE given the option of First name or Last name First.

Decide how you would like, hit Sync and the contacts will be transferred into your phone the way you request it.