WD97: Word Appears to Hang When You Search Large Address Book

When you use the Insert Address button and you search a large address book, Word displays an hourglass and appears to hang.

NOTE: Word is actually searching the address book, but is taking a long time to complete the search.

Word uses an algorithm to search the address book that is different from the one Microsoft Outlook uses.

To resolve this problem, obtain Microsoft Office 97 Service Release 2 (SR-2)

To temporarily work around this problem, use Microsoft Outlook to search your large address book.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Word 97.

This problem was corrected in Microsoft Office 97 Service Release 2 (SR-2).

For additional information about SR-2, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

To search the address book from Word, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Envelopes And Labels.
2. Click the Insert Address icon.
3. In the "Show Names from the" box, select the address book you want to search.
4. In the "Type Name or Select from List" box, type the first character of the name you want to find.

Word will begin to search your address book for the names that start with the character you typed.

NOTE: If you are searching a very large address book, the search may take a long time to finish (a few seconds to possibly 10 minutes or more). This same problem will occur with any feature in Word that can use the Address Book.