vcard-implementations

vCard implementations

In the development of hCard and proxies like X2V, we have discovered various behaviors and quirks of vCard implementations. See also the vcard-errata.

Contributors

• Tantek Çelik
• Brian Suda

Microsoft Outlook

version? platform?

single import

Outlook (either 2k3 or 2k7 beta) appears to only support one vCard per VCF. There are some third-party product that attempt to fix this [1]

URL handling

URL without non-standard TYPE param seems to be ignored.

ADR handling

Appears to not support the post-office-box sub-property of ADR.

Windows Address Book (WAB)

Version 6.00.X Win98 and Win XP Pro

vCard ENCODING

UTF-8 encoded vCard import prompts error as unrecognised vCard format. US ASCII 20127 encoded vCard successfully imported

ADR

If you do NOT specify TYPE=HOME,WORK,... then no address information is imported

TEL

If you do NOT specify TYPE=HOME,WORK,... then no address information is imported

PHOTO

Does not support Images

NOTE

According to the example in the RFC spec, all commas should be escaped, but WAB does not Un-escape them, leaving \, in the notes field.

Apple Address Book

On both OSX.3 and OSX.4.

general comments

• There are issues with importing UTF-8 vCards. Apple Address Book appears to treat .vcf files in the file system NOT as UTF-8, but rather perhaps Mac Roman?
  • Workaround: Explicitly specify the UTF-8 charset for vCard properties/fields that have non-ASCII-7 characters.
• Importing multiple vCards with the same fn/n results in duplicate entries in the Address Book. Basically, Address Book assumes that every vCard present in a single .vcf file represents a different person, even if the fn/n are the same etc.
  • Workarounds:
    • Only markup one hCard per person, per page (has potential implications for hResume).
    • Have the converting application/service (e.g. X2V), do automerging of hCards with the same fn/n and generate a .vcf stream with one vCard per unique fn/n.

organization vs. individual

Summary: FN==ORG organization semantic supported for both import and export.

For organization contact info, sets the FN and ORG to the name of the organization and N to empty on exported vCards.

Also treats imported vCards like that as organization contact info cards visibly in the UI.

geo (lack of support)

The GEO field is ignored on imported vCards. It is only saved as part of the NOTE.

source (lack of support)

The SOURCE property is not supported on imported vCards. It is only saved as part of the NOTE.

logo (lack of support)

The LOGO property is totally ignored and not even saved as part of the NOTE.

photo (limitations)

The PHOTO property can only take inline encoded data. URL values for are ignored.

url (limitations)

Only ONE URL property value is supported (whereas multiple *should* be supported, just like EMAIL).

adr (behaviour)

If you do NOT specify which type of address information it is (like HOME or WORK) it is assumed to be a WORK address.

categories (behaviour)

Behavior confirmed on versions:

• default on OSX.3
• Version 4.03 (483) on OSX.

Summary: Exports native "Groups" as vCard CATEGORIES. Ignores CATEGORIES field when importing a vCard.

The UI lets you create distinct "Groups" which you can then drag contacts into. Contacts can be in more than one group. Upon exporting a contact that is in one or more Groups, those Groups are listed in the CATEGORIES field.

However, when importing vCards, the CATEGORIES field is totally ignored by Address Book.

1. It does not add vCards with a category that matches a current Group to that Group.
2. It does not create new Groups for vCards with new categories.
3. It does not even add the CATEGORIES to the end of the notes field.

Though presumably it SHOULD do #1 and #2. Would also be nice if it simply let you edit the groups/categories for a contact simply as a list of tags for that contact.

Evolution

On Linux.

geo (lack of support)

• ichigo, Frederic to fill in details

Nokia series 60 address book

Line endings

The Contacts application on Nokia series 60 handsets will only open vCards with Windows (\r\n) line endings. Any other line ending styles will cause an error message.

This is actually reasonable behaviour because the vCard spec explicitly states \r\n should be used, but many applications will accept \n delimited vCards without complaint, and may microformat services produce \n delimited output.