WD97: Address Book Icon Doesn't Default to Outlook Contacts

ID: Q192346

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Word 97 for Windows
  • Microsoft Outlook 97

SYMPTOMS

When you click the Address Book icon (on the Tools menu, click Envelopes And Labels), Word displays the contacts in your Personal Address Book (PAB) instead of the Outlook Address Book Contacts that you specified when you set the "Show this address list first" option.

NOTE: To locate the "Show this address list first" option, click the Start button, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click the Mail (Mail and Fax) icon, and then click the Addressing tab. You may want to set this option based on a particular profile.


CAUSE

Word uses the Personal Address Book (PAB) by default if it finds it configured in the current mail profile.


WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, remove the Personal Address Book from your mail profile.

NOTE: Make sure you move your addresses to Contacts in Outlook before you remove the Personal Address Book from your mail profile.

To remove the PAB from your mail profile, follow these steps:

  1. Quit all Windows programs.


  2. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.


  3. Double-click the Mail (Mail and Fax) icon.


  4. On the Services tab, click Show Profiles.


  5. On the General tab, select the profile that you want to change, and then click Properties.


  6. On the Services tab, select the Personal Address Book, and then click Remove. When the following message appears, click Yes.


    7. Are you sure you want to remove this information service from the profile?
  7. Click OK to close the profile properties dialog box.


  8. Click Close to close the Mail (Mail and Fax) dialog box.


If you have only one Outlook Contact folder, Word still may be unable to see it even after you remove the Personal Address Book from your profile. To correct this situation, you will need to add an additional empty Outlook Contact folder using the following steps:

  1. In Microsoft Outlook, on the View menu, click Folder List. This will allow you to see all of your Outlook folders in a tree structure.


  2. In the Folder List, select Contacts (or your main Contact folder).


  3. On the File menu, point to New and then click Folder.


  4. Name your new Outlook Contact folder. Ensure the Folder contains box is set to Contact Items and then click OK.

    NOTE: If you are prompted with the following message, click No.
    Would you like a shortcut to this folder added to your Outlook Bar?


When you restart Word, and then click the Address Book icon on the Envelopes or the Labels tab, Word should default to the Contact list that you had specified in the "Show this address list first" box.


STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.
This problem does not occur in Office 2000.


MORE INFORMATION

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q155942 WD97: Unable to Attach Outlook Address Book for Mail Merge

Q171376 OL97: How to Create a New User Profile for Outlook

Q173461 OL97: Show This Folder as an E-mail Address Book Is Unavailable

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbinterop kbdta word97
Version : WINDOWS:97
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbbug


Last Reviewed: November 9, 1999
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