Editing Address book (section)

== Software address book ==
[[File:X-office-address-book.svg|thumb|A digital address book icon]]
Address books can also appear as [[software]] designed for this purpose,<ref name=":0" /> such as the "[[Contacts (Apple)|Contacts]]" application included with [[Apple Inc.]]'s [[Mac operating systems|Mac OS]]. Simple address books have been incorporated into [[e-mail|email]] software for many years, though more advanced versions have emerged in the 1990s and beyond, and in [[mobile phone]]s (a [[SIM card]] can store entries).

A [[personal information manager]] (PIM) integrates an address book, [[calendar]], task list, and sometimes other features.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jones |first=William |date=January 2007 |title=Personal Information Management |url=https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aris.2007.1440410117 |journal=Annual Review of Information Science and Technology |language=en |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=453–504 |doi=10.1002/aris.2007.1440410117 |issn=0066-4200|arxiv=2107.03291 }}</ref>

Entries can be imported and exported from the software to transfer them between programs or computers. The common file formats for these operations are:
* [[LDAP Data Interchange Format|LDIF]] (*.ldif, *.ldi)
* Tab delimited (*.tab, *.txt)
* [[Comma-separated values|Comma-separated]] (*.csv)
* [[vCard]] (*.vcf)

Individual entries are frequently transferred as [[vCard]]s (*.vcf), which are comparable to physical [[business card]]s. And some software applications like [[Lotus Notes]] and Open Contacts can handle a vCard file containing multiple vCard records.