Normal.dot issues

[Doug Taggett]

I have an issue with word opening documents that are not
formatted correctly. I know its an issues with the
normal.dot template. I've trid all recommendations on the
microsoft support site and nothing helps. Here is what I
know.

If I open the winword.exe /a from the run menu the
doucment opens fine and if I continue opening new
documents (while the original document is still open)it
works fine in opening correctly formated word documents.

The problem comes when I close all word documents and try
reopening word from the start menu. I then again get an
incorrectly formatted document.

Another fact for thought is when I open the C:\Documents
and Settings\Doug Taggett\Application
Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP\normal.wbt the file opens
normally and correctly formatted.

Does it have to do with where word is opening from.

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you.

Doug Taggett

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Not sure what normal.wbt is but suspect it is a backup of a normal.dot
template. Normal.dot (and its backup) should _not_ be in the STARTUP folder.
Normal.dot should be in the user templates folder which should be a
different folder. Your first task is to get normal.dot in the correct
folder.

It also sounds as if you have checked (in your documents) the option to
update styles. This is under Tools > Templates and Add-Ins. This should be
unchecked. If is unchecked, the formatting in normal.dot (or any other
template) will not change the formatting of existing documents.

If this hasn't fixed your problems, try renaming normal.dot to normalold.dot
(with Word closed).

For more on the different kinds of templates and locations of templates
folders see http://addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm.