Mac OS X Address Book flaw -- doesn't recognize punctuation

MacFixIt reader Brett Wickens has identified a significant limitation in Mac OS X's Address Book application -- its "Smart Groups" function fails to recognize punctuation in search criteria, resulting in some unwanted entries being automatically included in some cases.

Brett writes:

"Here is a repeatable flaw in the Tiger address book 'smart group' function.

Create a new smart group based on the occurrence of the string 'Dr.' (include the period) contained anywhere in the card. The smart group will now find all cards that have the string 'Dr' (with or without the period).

"This means entries that include such words as 'Drive' (e.g. Rodeo Drive in an address), which ends up being a lot of entries, even though you just wanted your list of Doctors!

"Unfortunately, you cannot restrict the criteria to just the 'Prefix' field, which is what you'd want to do if you were putting 'Dr.' before their name. Almost all other fields can be used as criteria... but not that one."

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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