Customised keyboard settings lost

[john]

Hi

I spent a great deal of time customising the keyboard for Office.
Yesterday, for some reason unknown to me, the customised keys didn't
work. When I went to Tools>Customise>Keyboard none of the settings
appeared.

I had made a full backup of my disk to an external disk, but I can't
find where these settings are stored in order to restore the settings
I made. Greatly appreciate it if anyone can tell me where they are
located and whether copying them from the backup external hard disk
will restore them.

Many thanks

John

Mac OSX 10.4.11
Mac Word 2004 V.11.3

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi

I spent a great deal of time customising the keyboard for Office.
Yesterday, for some reason unknown to me, the customised keys didn't
work. When I went to Tools>Customise>Keyboard none of the settings
appeared.

I had made a full backup of my disk to an external disk, but I can't
find where these settings are stored in order to restore the settings
I made. Greatly appreciate it if anyone can tell me where they are
located and whether copying them from the backup external hard disk
will restore them.

Many thanks

John

Mac OSX 10.4.11
Mac Word 2004 V.11.3

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Normal
is the default location. Hide the one you currently have then replace
it with the backup.

I guess you would know if you had a custom global template, which might
also have macros to which you assigned shortcuts.

 

[john]

~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Normal
is the default location. Hide the one you currently have then replace
it with the backup.

I guess you would know if you had a custom global template, which might
also have macros to which you assigned shortcuts.

Hi Elliott

Many thanks for your advice. In Documents/MIcrosoft User Data I
didn't find Normal, but AutoRecovery of Normal. In my backup External
HD, the same location had Normal (Date Modified 30 October 2008),
several AutoRecovery Files plus a series of Word Work Files as well as
several labelled Normal 27/10/06 etc. The latter I vaguely remember
making 2 years ago on advice from this site.

As for custom global templates, I seem to remember (I'm no techie)
trying to customise globally as far as possible and then making the
rest customised to Word where customising globally wasn't possible.

The good news is that when I discarded the AutoRecovery Normal, copied
across the Normal from the backup disk, and restarted Word, the
settings were restored. Thank you.

I now THINK I know how it happened. I pasted into a Word document
paragraphs that I'd copied from an online journal. Although I did a
Paste Special and copied in Unformatted Text, nevertheless the copied
sections appeared in US English, whereas the rest of the document is
in UK English. Hence I selected the section and under
Tools>Language>I selected UK English and ticked the Default box
because I want the Default language to be UK English. When I shut
down at the end of the day I had a message asking if I wanted to
confirm changes to Normal. Thinking that I wanted to confirm the
default language as UK English, I pressed the Yes button. I'm
guessing that it was this that messed up the customised keyboard
settings.

Hence, supplementary question: How do I avoid documents changing to US
English without losing my customised keyboard settings?

Many thanks

John

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi Elliott

Many thanks for your advice. In Documents/MIcrosoft User Data I
didn't find Normal, but AutoRecovery of Normal. In my backup External
HD, the same location had Normal (Date Modified 30 October 2008),
several AutoRecovery Files plus a series of Word Work Files as well as
several labelled Normal 27/10/06 etc. The latter I vaguely remember
making 2 years ago on advice from this site.

As for custom global templates, I seem to remember (I'm no techie)
trying to customise globally as far as possible and then making the
rest customised to Word where customising globally wasn't possible.

You normally make a custom global template using the organize menu.
I made one a thousand years ago to insure against the all-too-easy
destruction of Normal. There is some mucking about to tell Word it is
there and you want to use it. Something about a startup folder. I
forget!

The good news is that when I discarded the AutoRecovery Normal, copied
across the Normal from the backup disk, and restarted Word, the
settings were restored. Thank you. Excellent!
I now THINK I know how it happened. I pasted into a Word document
paragraphs that I'd copied from an online journal. Although I did a
Paste Special and copied in Unformatted Text, nevertheless the copied
sections appeared in US English, whereas the rest of the document is
in UK English. Hence I selected the section and under
Tools>Language>I selected UK English and ticked the Default box
because I want the Default language to be UK English. When I shut
down at the end of the day I had a message asking if I wanted to
confirm changes to Normal. Thinking that I wanted to confirm the
default language as UK English, I pressed the Yes button. I'm
guessing that it was this that messed up the customised keyboard
settings.
Hence, supplementary question: How do I avoid documents changing to US
English without losing my customised keyboard settings?

I suspect that in spite of your best intentions, something with the
same style names you use got pasted with formatting, and then the
update everything to "match the new style sabotage my normal" box got
clicked, and then saved on the way out. You ended up with your Normal
semi-matching the document you were plagiarising^h^h^h pasting from ;-)

With a naming convention designed to confuse and dismay, the default
style is also called normal. Many a beginner actually uses it. When two
such people share documents, and each has (usually unwittingly) changed
the normal style (not the normal default template - that gets wrecked
later as you described) chaos ensues.
Each style comes with its own language.
It is so easy to get trapped. That's why I put everything valuable like
macros and key bindings into a global template all those years ago.

I think you mentioned you were already a user of Clive's "Bend Word to
Your Will" You might be motivated to revisit it and concentrate on his
techniques for keeping his styles pure and unsullied. It looks like you
already do a lot of it. Paste unformatted is one of the key tricks.

The way styles are handled by default is one of the more egregiously
bad design decisions in a product plagued with bad design decisions.

Still, it is not as bad as bullets and numbering. Or Office 2008, which
has been numptified beyond rational usability.