If I want to alphabetize a long list, can Word do it or do I need to
use Excel or Access or something else, and how do I do it?

In Word under the "Tools" menu is a "Sort..." command.

If each item in the list is a new line, or paragraph- select the
entire list, choose sort...by paragraph and then ascending to get a
list that alphabetises from A-Z.

Let me know if it works for you.

I am not aware of a Sort command in Word (I checked Off XP, and it's
not there [could be in Off2003]).

Copy and paste your data into Excel (if it's in a tabular format in
Word, it usually comes out separated into cells in Excel nicely
[unless you have line breaks]).

Under the data menu in Excel, there is a sort function.  Use this.  HTH.

If you have line breaks in your Word table, see

http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=95644

This is VERY simple. The only problem Dancing Bear had was that this
is under the TABLE menu, NOT the Tools menu.

While this feature is under the Table menu, it does NOT require that
the data reside in a table; it can be simply a long list. If your data
is tabbed, then I strongly suggest that you first convert it to a
table, sort it, and THEN bring it back to a table. To convert to a
table, select ALL text, including the paragraph return that follows
each line. Go to Table-Convert-Text to table. Choose the number of
columns and the character you used to separate the text (tab?), then
OK.

I'm not a Google researcher, but I wrote a book on Word.