Odd behavior of 'Normal' Template backup?

[Zack]

As recommended by various people, I have backed-up both the original
untouched 'Normal' template that comes with Word 2004 and a copy of my
current 'Normal' template incorporating various changes. These back-ups
are saved to a different hard drive than the one which contains my
system (OS10.3.3) and applications.

When I recently tried to open up each of the back-up 'Normal'
templates, I got a warning that they contained macros and asking if I
wanted to disable them. This seems odd, since I have not in fact used
any macros and the Normal template which resides in my 'Users' folder
displays no such warning when I open it. Is this behavior any cause
for concern? Word in all other respects seems stable, except for the
fact that preferences on new documents seem to occassionally revert
back to 'background repagination' and 'show horizontal scrollbar',
despite my consistent efforts to choose otherwise.

Thanks,
Zack

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Zack,

I believe I've heard, with regard to WinWord, that the "macros here!" flag,
once set for a document, can never be completely cleared even if the macros
are removed. So false positives with that message are not uncommon. (I get
that message here, but my backup does have macros--however, I don't get the
message if I open my current Normal with macros, oddly...)

However, it sounds like you never had any macros in the Normal template.

What if you make a new current duplicate?

You can automatically run a macro on launch to force prefs to reset
themselves, if you want to take the trouble to set it up. I don't have a
problem with those particular two, myself (and just now realized, thanks to
you, that horizontal scrollbar is doc-specific, not app-wide).

Daiya