Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later: Address Book cards show up as "(null)" in Speech preferences

Issue or symptom

Address Book cards that do not contain a company name will be displayed with the name "(null)" when the Address Book command set is configured in the Speech pane of the System Preferences. All Address Book speech commands will work normally with these "(null)" cards, except the command "[Phone, Fax, Pager] for [Full name, Nickname]" which will not display a phone number.

Solution

To get Address Book cards to show up correctly in the Speech pane of System Preferences or to be able to display a phone number from an Address Book card using a speech command, complete these steps:

1. Open Address Book.
2. Click Edit at the bottom of the Address Book window.
3. Click on the names of people in Address Book and look for cards that contain a blank Company field (the word "Company" will be displayed in gray under the person's name).
4. Click on the dimmed (gray) word "Company" on the card and type in a name. If the person is not associated with any company, you can enter their name again in the Company field. You do not need to check the box next to the word "Company".

Any Address Book cards that have a name entered in the Company field should be displayed correctly when configuring Address Book commands in the Speech pane of System Preferences.

Note: You can now use the person's name with the speech command "[Phone, Fax, Pager] for [Full name, Nickname]" but when the phone number gets displayed on-screen, it will show the company's name (rather than the person's name) above the phone number.

Additional information

If the Speech Commands window is blank in Mac OS X 10.4 or later, see this article instead.