Normal.dot fails to save anything

[swanskerry]

I've been researching this for a while, and it's driving me crazy. Any
customizations I make are not saved to Normal.dot. As soon as I close
Word, macros, toolbar customizations, style changes, everything is
gone. I've turned on the option to Prompt to save Normal template,
which does nothing. I've deleted Normal, no luck. I've tried opening
Normal and making the changes there and saving, doesn't work. My
company does not control Normal; Word's using the one saved in the
normal location on the hard drive. I even doublechecked using the VBA
IDE to check the CustomizationContext and Path. I have Acrobat 7
installed, so per several threads I've read, I've tried using Shift +
Save All to save changes to Normal.dot, but then Word crashes - it
won't even open until I delete Normal. I can't use the registry patch
that Graham Mayor suggested in the "BUG: Word 2003, Normal.dot fails to
save Outline Toolbar State" thread of 3/24 because I'm a software
trainer and I need the full functionality. Other trainers here have
both programs installed and haven't run into this problem, or so they
claim. Does anyone have any other ideas? Thanks!

 

[Graham Mayor]

As I indicated in my web page article, Acrobat 7's add-in is even worse than
Adobe's previous dreadful efforts and screws up Word's ability to save
customisations to normal.dot. The workarounds posted should work, however if
Word has crashed you have other issues to contend with - orphan files. See
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm.
What other add-ins do you have as Acrobat is not the only dross out there?
See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm and
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CheckIfAddinsInstalled.htm

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[swanskerry]

Nothing in Templates and Add-Ins or Word's Startup folder. The only
COM Add-Ins are Microsoft Word East Europeans Font Tool and Web Page
Wizard, neither of hich was checked. Deleting the registry key had no
effect. Deleting the temp files works...sort of. I can customize
Normal once, but then it corrupts again if I try to go back and make
another change. I can probably live with that, but do you know why
that would happen? Thanks!

 

[Charles Kenyon]

I would suggest you print out
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm. Go through it bit
by bit and cross off each thing as you try it. The articles that Graham gave
you are pretty comprehensive.

I am not doubting that you believe you've tried everything. But based on
years here, I've found that most people who say they tried everything
skipped one or two procedures that turn out to be the ones that they needed.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide


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