all of a sudden, every time i open word, the blank document opens with a
floating control toolbox. What is it? and how do i get rid of it. it is
taking up valuable real estate?
The Control Toolbox is one of the toolbars on the View > Toolbars
menu, and the items on it are ActiveX controls that you can use to
make forms. However, the ActiveX controls are treated like macros by
Word's security mechanism. If your security level is set to High, the
controls are disabled and the toolbox opens whenever you open a
document that contains them.
The fact that this happens whenever you start a blank document means
that a control has somehow been put into your Normal.dot template (or
at least something is there that Word thinks is a control). To get rid
of it, use the procedure in
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/BlankDocNotBlank.htm.
