Putting pictures in contact cards

When you need to meet people for the first time, whether at a job interview or networking event, do you know what they look like?

For most of us, the answer is “no.” Fortunately, we can now change the answer to “yes” in many cases. All you need to do is put a picture of the person in the contact card you have for that person.

To set up this solution, you need two things on your computer screen (doing this on tablets or smartphones is relatively onerous – I don’t recommend it):

• an entry for the person in your electronic contact application (e.g. Microsoft Outlook contacts, Apple Contacts) that synchronizes to your smartphone
• a digital photo of the person

Photos can be easy to come by. Pictures of people abound on the Internet. They exist on people’s websites. Companies frequently post photos of executives and other employees on company websites. LinkedIn profiles aren’t complete without photos of the people behind the profiles. If the photos aren’t in any of these places, try a Google Image search using the person’s name.

To put a photo of the person in your contact card using your computer, follow these steps.

1. Open your contact application next to a web page that contains the person’s photo.
2. Left-click the person’s photo and hold the mouse button down.
3. Drag the photo to the contact card and drop it there.
4. Follow any on-screen instructions.

Drag-and-drop photo copying works with many, but not all, web browsers. I successfully tested this method using both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. If drag-and-drop doesn’t work with the browser you’re using, try it using Firefox or Chrome.

If drag-and-drop into your contact application doesn’t work, you’ll need to save a copy of the photo to your computer, then import the photo to the contact. See your contact application’s Help menu for instructions.