Disappearing custom menu

[JD2]

Dear Word gurus,

We are using Word 2003, and I have been helping one of our staff create a
custom menu with shortcuts to templates they need to open frequently (using
macros to open the said template copy). The menu and macros are stored in
normal.dot template on a personal network drive (F.

However, we have noticed some bizaare behaviour - when my staff member goes
to continue adding more template links on the custom menu (using Tools,
Customise) on another day, the menu appears in the command menu but none of
the templates appear listed underneath. However, she may go in another time
(eg next day), and they will be back again.

This sounds suspiciously like something quirky with "normal.dot". They are
an external office who uses radio links. If the network drive dropped out,
would this explain something like this happening? I've worked with
templates, etc. for some time now and never seen such unusual behaviour. Any
ideas?

Would we be better off doing it a different way (ie. using a global template
or something)? Any advice appreciated.

Cheers
JD2

 

[Graham Mayor]

Hopefully you are not trying to share normal.dot? You cannot share the
Normal.dot file among multiple users in Word
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811468

However the easiest way to do this is to add the FileNewDialog command from
the All commands section to the toolbar in place of the New command. This
uses Word's inbuilt dialog to list the installed templates and still only
requires two clicks to select a template for a new document. Furthermore it
might be better to have the usertemplates folder including normal.dot on the
local drive and have the workgroup folder on the network for company
document templates.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[JD2]

Hi Graham,

Thanks for the quick response. We're not sharing the normal.dot file as it
is only accessible by one person on their F: drive (which is a personal drive
that only that user can access).

However, I will try your suggested FileNewDialog option and see how that
does. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

Cheers
JD2