Word 2003 Start up Task Pane and PDFMaker

[Joe]

Everytime I start up Word 2003 the Start up Task Pane and
PDFMaker pop up. I went to Tools/Options/View and
cleared the check mark next to "Startup Task Pane". I
also went to View/Toolbars and cleared the check mark
next to the PDFMaker toolbar. After I do both of these
changes the go away. When I closed down Word and reopen
later, they come back again. Word is not saving the
changes. Any ideas?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can disable the task pane by clearing the check box for "Show at
startup" at the bottom of the New Document pane. To keep the Acrobat toolbar
from loading, you will have to remove the PDFMaker.dot template from the
Word or Office Startup folder. You won't be able to use the Adobe commands
to create a PDF, but you can still print directly to the Adobe printer
(Distiller, Adobe PDF).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[joe g]

There is no check box in the Word 2003 version New
Document pane to stop the Start up task pane. I remember
unchecking it in Word XP, but it is not there in the 2003
version. Any other ideas?

 

[Rick]

This is controlled by the following registry setting:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options\StartupDialog.

If you're comfortable editing the registry, change the dword value to 0.
When the dword value is 0, the task pane does not start up; when it's 1, it
does start up.

If it is already set to 0 (hex) and the task pane STILL starts up, delete
the StartupDialog key. Word will recreate it automatically.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Joe

In 2003, Tools > Options. Click the View tab. It's the first box ("Startup Task Pane"). Un-tick it.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
Melbourne, Australia

 

[joe g]

Rick,

I followed your instructions and deleted the key. I
unchecked the Startup task pane box again. When I re-
open Word, the task pane is up again. Are there any
other registry changes needed or should I re-install Word?

 

[Rick]

Perhaps there is an auto macro that runs when you start Word that is
overriding your change. Click Tools | Templates and Add-ins ... is anything
listed there? You can also try renaming the Normal.dot template to something
like Normal.old and let Word recreate it. This is just in case Normal.dot is
the culprit.

 

[Janet]

Rick,

I followed your instructions and deleted the key. I
unchecked the Startup task pane box again. When I re-
open Word, the task pane is up again. Are there any
other registry changes needed or should I re-install Word?

Joe,

Check your registry under:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\General\

for the following DWORD:
DoNotDismissFileNewTaskPane

If it's there, and the value is 1, change it to 0

That worked for me with exactly the same problem.

Hope that helps,
Janet