...replace existing Normal Template?"

[Rafael Montserrat]

Ibook G4
OS 10.4.6
Word for mac 2004 v11.2
Entourage V. 11.2.5

Hi,

What should I say when I'm asked "Do You want to replace the existing Normal
Template?"

When I say "No" the "Save As" dialogue comes up anyway.

Thanks, Rafael

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Rafael:

Normally, you would say "No", but you would always ask yourself "Why?"

What this means is that Word was in use, and you did some things that caused
a change to the Normal template. Depending on what you have in your Normal
template, just opening Word is sufficient to cause a change: it's the
scratchpad Word uses to store all manner of settings.

When Word last stopped, it was unable to save the changed version of normal.
This usually means that it crashed or you force-quit it before it could save
Normal properly.

So Word retrieves the pending changes from the Autorecover file and asks you
if you now want to save them.

If the changes were important, you would have used the Save All command to
ensure you saved them when you made them. If you didn't do that, then the
changes weren't that important, and you can afford to throw them away.

If you say No, Word will use the existing version of Normal. If you say
Yes, Word will replace Normal with the new version.

Cheers

Ibook G4
OS 10.4.6
Word for mac 2004 v11.2
Entourage V. 11.2.5

Hi,

What should I say when I'm asked "Do You want to replace the existing Normal
Template?"

When I say "No" the "Save As" dialogue comes up anyway.

Thanks, Rafael

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Rafael Montserrat]

Hi John,

I think it's about crashes. I'm still getting them, and I'm about to go
over lots of NG feedback I received, some of it from you, about what to do.
The topic there is "Word Crashing At End Of Spelling & Grammar Check".

I'm still getting the crashes, but now they're not always related to ending
a Spelling & Grammar Check. I haven't yet logged what I've done just prior
to these crashes.

You mention the Save All command. I build pretty complex Customizations of
my toolbars, and I learned the hard way to use the Save All command to
preserve them. One of the recent crashes I think‹I don't recall this
well‹happened when I pressed Save All a few minutes after I'd added some
Customization. I had already pressed Save All shortly before with no ill
effect, but when word crashed I lost everything and when I re-opened Word,
the tool bars came on in default.

As I understand you, there shouldn't be any problem Saving Normal every time
it asks. Wouldn't that just contribute to updating everything and keeping
the normal template current?

Thanks,

Rafael





8/5/06 5:38 PM

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Rafael,

Have you been customizing the built-in toolbars? We have recommended many,
many times on this newsgroup that people create their own custom toolbars
rather than customizing the built-in toolbars. That way, when something
happens you don't lose them! I'm surprised you've never seen this advice
before.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Rafael:

I recommend saving Normal every time Word asks you to do so, PROVIDED that
this happens as a DIRECT result of some keystrokes you pressed.

If Word asks at any other time, it just MAY have picked up a virus and be
trying to install it into your Normal template.

If you have a good virus checker running, go ahead and save anyway. If you
haven't, THINK before you do.

If Word is crashing, something's not right (You don't say!!).

It's either the Document, the Template, or the Preferences.

Beth is right: if you customise, make your OWN toolbars. That way you can
recover your customised toolbars if Normal template corrupts.

If you customise the default toolbars, you have an extremely high likelihood
that you will corrupt the normal template. You can reduce this likelihood
by ensuring that you have only one document open whenever you customise.
You can reduce it to practically Zero by ensuring that Normal Template is
the only document open when you customise.

Most of the corruption of Normal template occurs when Word gets confused as
to which "copy" of which document it should save to. If Normal template is
the only document open, it can't get confused.

Cheers

Hi John,

I think it's about crashes. I'm still getting them, and I'm about to go
over lots of NG feedback I received, some of it from you, about what to do.
The topic there is "Word Crashing At End Of Spelling & Grammar Check".

I'm still getting the crashes, but now they're not always related to ending
a Spelling & Grammar Check. I haven't yet logged what I've done just prior
to these crashes.

You mention the Save All command. I build pretty complex Customizations of
my toolbars, and I learned the hard way to use the Save All command to
preserve them. One of the recent crashes I think‹I don't recall this
well‹happened when I pressed Save All a few minutes after I'd added some
Customization. I had already pressed Save All shortly before with no ill
effect, but when word crashed I lost everything and when I re-opened Word,
the tool bars came on in default.

As I understand you, there shouldn't be any problem Saving Normal every time
it asks. Wouldn't that just contribute to updating everything and keeping
the normal template current?

Thanks,

Rafael





8/5/06 5:38 PM

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410