I cannot customize Word 2003

[JMMorris]

Each time I try to customize Word, including setting the default font or
customizing the toolbars, when I exit the program, all changes are lost. I
have tried reinstalling Word and doing a "repair", all to no avail. This
does not happen in any other Office 2003 program. Thank you.

 

[TF]

Do you have Acrobat v7? Adobe have made a complete mess of correcting the
problems with previous versions of Acrobat where it forced Word to Save
Changes to Normal Template everytime Word closed. Now they have added code
that inhibits Word forever saving normal.dot - even when it really needs to
do so.



: Each time I try to customize Word, including setting the default font or
: customizing the toolbars, when I exit the program, all changes are lost.
I
: have tried reinstalling Word and doing a "repair", all to no avail. This
: does not happen in any other Office 2003 program. Thank you.

 

[Dian D. Chapman, MVP]

These settings in Word are set in the Normal.dot master template.
Chances are that the normal.dot on your system is either locked from
changes, if working from an office network...or that it is corrupt?
You might want to try renaming it to normal.old to get a fresh copy
and see if that helps.

See the following articles for complete info...

Normal.dot Template-Explained
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=151

Troubleshooting Computer (and MS Word) Errors
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=507

Good luck...

Dian D. Chapman, Technical Consultant
Microsoft MVP, MOS Certified
Editor/TechTrax Ezine

Free MS Tutorials: http://www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
Free Word eBook: http://www.mousetrax.com/books.html
Optimize your business docs: http://www.mousetrax.com/consulting
Learn VBA the easy way: http://www.mousetrax.com/techcourses.html

 

[JMMorris]

Yes, I do. Is there a work around? Do I have to uninstall Acrobat 7?
Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The workaround is to explicitly save Normal.dot when you make changes.
Either open Normal.dot for editing, make the changes, and save it, or, while
working on a file based on Normal.dot, press Shift while clicking on the
File menu in order to see Save All. That command will force a save to the
template as well as the document.

 

[JMMorris]

Thank you all for your help. Once I understood the problem, I tried
something else and it worked. I went into Control Panel to remove Adobe
Acrobat 7, but found that I had the option of removing just the Word Ad-On.
I disabled it and was able to maintain changes in normal.dot.
Thank you again.