Help w/use of Word 2002 templates

[JMorris]

Greetings.

Any advice on the use of Word 2002 templates would be helpful.

KEY ISSUE: The templates are very difficult to use and there seems to
be .DOT corruption. Word freezes a lot.

PLATFORM: Word 2002 on XP. All patches and service packs. Lots of
memory.

EDITING GOAL: Want to create a standard template which will be used
again and again. I edit a special document that defines the template
(short, but examples of all styles). Then each new document will have
this standard template attached.

DETAILS: I have done everything that various posters have suggested
in terms of making Word stable (i.e. turning off "auto update on
styles and templates" etc.) Template is stored in it's own special
directory not on C:.

PROBLEM: How do you use the template "organizer" to make sure that
all the standard styles are available in a legacy document? New
documents are one issue, but retrofitting the new styles to an
existing document causes problems. It is hard to delete old styles
(sometimes "delete" is greyed out on a created style). And the some
specific new styles cause Word to freeze when transfering to the new
document.

SUMMARY: You'd think that what I want to do is pretty simple. Make a
standard template available to multiple documents, both new documents
and legacy documents. It is understood that the template is not
applied automatically, but that once the styles are made available to
a legacy or new document, one can select all instances of a given
object and tag them with the appropriate new style. At several points
along this path, Microsoft Word 2002 fails. It freezes; it is unclear
how it works. It's quite disappointing actually.

WHAT ABOUT 2003? Will the new version of the software work better?

WHAT KIND OF GUIDANCE?

Many many thanks. I know from other postings that any answers will be
helpful to a lot of people.

Thanks, John

P.S. FYI: THINGS I HAVE DONE ALREADY

1. Massive file cleaning operation once
a month to get rid of "locked temporary files".

2. Ensure to turn off "canvas" in Draw <-- really important --
AND items created with it are corrupt.

3. Ensure updated video drivers.

4. REMOVE VOICE & HANDWRITING RECOGNITION FROM OFFICE INSTALL.

5. Turn off Norton Office plugin.

6. Erase normal.dot and allow for clean rebuild of this file.

7. Tools, Options, Save --> turn ON the Prompt to save Normal
template.

8. Never save when resources are low.

9. Don't make changes to Normal.dot
(do the erase thing and have it recreated)

10. Don't use Fast Saves, Versions, Master documents, Document maps.

11. Don't use "auto updates on styles"

12. Don't user Macros.

13. Detect & Repair Word

14. Turn off embed linguistic data (won't stay off)

15. Turn off embed smart tags (won't stay off)

16. Adobe update issue (printer driver??? -- what about Win2PDF???)

 

[Paul Carr]

I am trying to merge a Microsoft Word document with an Excel data source.
But when I try to insert mail fields into my blank document, the mail fields
are named AutoMergeField, AutoMergeField1, AutoMergeField2 et cetera instead
of FirstName, Last Name et cetera as in the titles/labels in the Excel data
source. Can anyone help me here?

Any help much appreciated.

Paul Carr

 

[Paul Carr]

When I access a newsgroup on Outlook Express, the standard toolbar remains
the same as for the mail client. In other words, I still have "New Mail"
for example, instead of "New Post". This is very inconvenient as it means I
can't send a new post to a newsgroup using Outlook Express. Is there any
way I can alter the settings in Outlook Express to remedy this?

Thanks in advance,

Paul Carr

 

[Martha]

When I access a newsgroup on Outlook Express, the standard toolbar remains
the same as for the mail client. In other words, I still have "New Mail"
for example, instead of "New Post". This is very inconvenient as it means I
can't send a new post to a newsgroup using Outlook Express. Is there any
way I can alter the settings in Outlook Express to remedy this?

Um, why are you asking a Word newsgroup about this? Even if you are
misguided enough to use Word as your email editor, this is still an
Outlook Express issue. Try a group in the microsoft.public.outlook.*
hierarchy. (Or better yet, go to google groups and search to see if
someone has already answered your question.)