Customized Menus/Toolbars Disappear After Shutdown

[rafael montserrat]

OS 9.2.2
Word 98


I carefully create a number of customized menus or toolbars, and then, when
the computer freezes and I have to shut down or restart, they're all gone.
It doesn't just happen in a freeze, but also in an ordinary shutdown or
restart.

So much creative time lost.

Is there something that can be done to retain those customizations so they
don't disappear?

Thanks, Rafael

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi Rafael,

They ought to save to your Normal template, unless you have it set
otherwise. Hitting Save All (cmd-opt-s (cmd=apple key)) instead of just Save
will save all modified templates as well as open documents, but saving
templates should be done automatically when you quit as usual, so doing it
manually may not work either. But try it.

Or, if you have "prompt to save Normal template" enabled in Prefs | Save,
and you are hitting NO when you exit Word, that's your problem.

Or, conceivably, you are accidentally saving them somewhere else than the
Normal template (check the dropdown menu at the bottom of the first Tools |
Customize dialog) and they don't reappear b/c you aren't using that document
or template anymore.

Dayo

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Rafael,

It's also possible that the toolbars aren't gone but are just deactivated.
If you saved the toolbars in Normal (see Dayo's reply), open a blank
document, go to View> Toolbars and make sure your custom toolbars are
checked. If you don't see your custom toolbars in the list, then they were
never saved to Normal.

By the way, since the Normal template seems to get corrupted sooner or
later, it is best to save your custom toolbars in a Custom template.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

 

[John McGhie [MVP]]

Hi Rafeal:

Into which template did you write your customisations? And did you save
that template?

If the answer to those questions is "I don't know" and "I don't know" then
you're doing exactly what I did in the early days.

The short answer to your question is use Shift + File > Save All. The Save
All option will not appear on the file menu until you hold down the Shift
key. Let me explain...

The Tools>Customise dialog is a little confusing. When you go to
Tools>Customise you find on one of the tabs a box that says "Save in:
Normal". This dialog controls where your customisations are being written.
The technical term for it is "The Customisation Context", which basically
means "where your changes are written".

When you open a document, it always opens the Normal template as well, and
the Normal template is "normally" used to store macros, toolbars, keystrokes
and other customisations.

If you open a document that is attached to a different template, Word will
open that template as well. So you potentially open three files: one .doc
and two .dot files, Normal Template and the Attached Template being the two
..dots.

In your case, the only files open are likely to be the document and the
Normal Template. So usually, you do not have to change the Customisation
Context, because it always defaults to Normal.

Now when Word is working, for speed, it writes changes only to memory. Word
has a background task that writes any pending changes from memory to the
disk as required. When you use Save to save a document (File>Save or
Command + s) Word writes pending changes FOR THE DOCUMENT to the disk. It
does not write any changes that are pending for other files. Those changes
will be written to disk when you normally exit Word. If Word does not exit
normally, those changes are lost.

So when you are working on customisations, learn to hold down the Shift key
and use File>Save All, to ensure that your pending changes to the Template
are written to disk when you save.

Hope this helps

OS 9.2.2
Word 98


I carefully create a number of customized menus or toolbars, and then, when
the computer freezes and I have to shut down or restart, they're all gone.
It doesn't just happen in a freeze, but also in an ordinary shutdown or
restart.

So much creative time lost.

Is there something that can be done to retain those customizations so they
don't disappear?

Thanks, Rafael

--
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post replies to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP: Word for Macintosh and Word for Windows
Consultant Technical Writer <[email protected]>
+61 4 1209 1410; Sydney, Australia: GMT + 10 hrs