Word closes when I close a document?

[Lori]

Must be some setting but suddenly when I close a word document, the whole
application closes...it's driving me nuts. Any idea how to change the
setting to keep the application open even if no documents are open.

 

[Jezebel]

There's no setting that does this. It could be an AutoClose macro
misbehaving, or a corruption to normal.dot.

 

[Emily]

I'M HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM! It's making me crazy! I'd like to be able to
close a document and not have to RE-OPEN Word altogether! I never had this
problem until we upgraded to Windows 2003. Is it a bug with the 2003
products?? It makes no difference how I "close" - I can go to File, Close;
or hit the little Close folder icon; or hit the close X in the top right-hand
corner - all three have the same effect: it doesn't just close the open
document, it closes Word altogether and I have to reopen Word to continue
working. I can't figure out how to change it. WHAT A FREAKING WASTE OF TIME!

 

[Emily]

I found the answer on another post, this worked for me:

If Word closes by itself and doesn't give an error message, then it could be
due to a bug in the handwriting recognition feature. Try removing
handwriting recognition in Start | Control Panel | Regional and Language
Settings | Language tab | Details | <select Handwriting Recognition> |
Remove. If this fixes the problem, and if you need to use handwriting
recognition, then you can add it back and it should work okay after you
re-add it.