autotext global defaults

[Peterd]

running word 2002 there are numerous autotext entries
that appear to be global. If I delete one of these to
remove the clutter from the autotext drop-down, it goes
for that session, but as soon as I restart word, there it
is back again.

How does one get rid of all the unwanted 'rubbish' once
and for all that microsoft think might be useful

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Any chance that when you close Word you are prompted as to whether you want
to save changes made to the global template normal.dot and click on "no?"

 

[Guest]

No prompt comes up, but even if it did there would be
occasions where one might forget and there they would be
back again!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You shouldn't have to do this more than once. Delete the AutoText entry,
then say yes to saving Normal.dot. If they're coming back, then Normal.dot
is perhaps being replaced at startup?

 

[Guest]

Suzzanne,
normal.dot is not being replaced as all my other
customisation stays in place, but somehow autotext
entries from elsewhere seem to get back in, I presume
form some global template or file, but where from and how
do I kill it? that is the issue

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Hi,

You have to take the messages you've gotten here seriously. The AutoText you
are talking about is almost certainly in normal.dot. AT doesn't get anywhere
else unless you try. It takes work to put AutoText elsewhere. All your other
customizations may well be somewhere other than normal.dot.

If you are prompted about saving the changes to normal.dot when you close
Word after having deleted AutoText, you need to OK saving the changes.

 

[Peterd]

Charles

thanks for response on this, but what I am stating is
correct. The normal.dot does contain all my other
customisation (toolbars, macros, etc etc) and also
contains the autotext entries I have made, but when I hae
deleted a microsoft standard entry, despite saving my
normal.dot, it comes back when I restart. These must be
system entries (eg, things like ATTN: , - PAGE - , Best
Regards, and so on) that are stored somewhere, so the
question is where?

 

[Alex]

Hi Peter

Had a similar problem some years back, and the cause and
solution were very simple.

As I'd spent a lot of time creating my normal.dot I backed
it up just in case my system went down.

One day the system failed and C needed reformatting, in
the process of rebuilding the PC I reinstalled my
normal.dot.

Like you it worked fine until i wanted to change it, like
you the changes were reset on restarting Word.

The cause was simple, Normal.dot when copied from the
backup CD had been given a read only file status by
windows.

The solution was therefore simple, remove the read only
file status.

hope this helps

Alex

 

[Charles Kenyon]

They are stored in Normal.dot. I know because I moved them out of my
Normal.dot which contains no AutoText. I put the ones I wanted to keep in
one of my other global templates and discarded the rest.

I suspect that Alex may have found the key. I am surprised that an error
message or request to save as wouldn't be generated, but I should stop being
surprised by Word.