Word Normal template change

[Art Shotwell]

Every time I close Word 2004, I get the message:

Changes have been made that affect the global template, "Normal". Do you
want to save those changes? (Don't Save), (Cancel), (Save)

This message comes up whether or not I create a new doc. Always. But, I
notice when I use my wife's Word 2004, she doesn't get this message. How can
I make it go away??? One major problem with it, for me at least, is that the
default is to Save the changes. Why would I, when I don't know what those
changes are?

Any suggestions???

 

[Elliott Roper]

Every time I close Word 2004, I get the message:

Changes have been made that affect the global template, "Normal". Do you
want to save those changes? (Don't Save), (Cancel), (Save)

This message comes up whether or not I create a new doc. Always. But, I
notice when I use my wife's Word 2004, she doesn't get this message. How can
I make it go away??? One major problem with it, for me at least, is that the
default is to Save the changes. Why would I, when I don't know what those
changes are?

Every time you change a style, or do one of several other things, like
add autocorrects and macros, Word wants to remember that so next time
it will serve the styles and everything back up to you to satisfy your
current whim.

Now, it is all of London to a burnt match that you don't know that you
are doing those things to your styles, and slightly shorter odds that
you don't know what styles are either. And about the same odds that you
don't care either. <evil grin>

In that case, there is a preference setting in Word » Preferences » Save
"Prompt to save normal template" Just uncheck it and you'll never see
that message again.

Later, when you have become more fastidious about your documents,
probably as a result of reading
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html
you will probably want to turn it back on again ... and a lot of other
preferences off. (The ones that make Word easy to use, but turn it into
a slippery little eel.)
By the time you have got your head around "Bend", you won't be worrying
about how big your font list is either. You'll only look at it when you
are writing ransom notes.
(I'll meet you over in your other post with a few fontish bits of magic)

 

[Art Shotwell]

Every time you change a style, or do one of several other things, like
add autocorrects and macros, Word wants to remember that so next time
it will serve the styles and everything back up to you to satisfy your
current whim.

Now, it is all of London to a burnt match that you don't know that you
are doing those things to your styles, and slightly shorter odds that
you don't know what styles are either. And about the same odds that you
don't care either. <evil grin>

In that case, there is a preference setting in Word » Preferences » Save
"Prompt to save normal template" Just uncheck it and you'll never see
that message again.

Later, when you have become more fastidious about your documents,
probably as a result of reading
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html
you will probably want to turn it back on again ... and a lot of other
preferences off. (The ones that make Word easy to use, but turn it into
a slippery little eel.)
By the time you have got your head around "Bend", you won't be worrying
about how big your font list is either. You'll only look at it when you
are writing ransom notes.
(I'll meet you over in your other post with a few fontish bits of magic)

Okay...I think I'll leave the Preferences/Save alone, since I made those
changes after skimming through Bend word to your Will a couple months ago.
Thanks for the suggestions, though. I haven't figured out if it's a good
idea to save those changes, though, or not.

Thanks for your help here...

 

[Elliott Roper]

Okay...I think I'll leave the Preferences/Save alone, since I made those
changes after skimming through Bend word to your Will a couple months ago.
Thanks for the suggestions, though. I haven't figured out if it's a good
idea to save those changes, though, or not.

Save them when you *know* you changed a style or autocorrect or added a
macro you want to keep, otherwise don't. It will be a style change you
made by accident and will live to regret.

It is a very good idea to hide a copy of normal away somewhere once you
are pleased with all your styles and stuff.

At some point, you might want to put all of your template goodness in a
global template add-in, which is safer from accidental errors.

Heh! Mine's called "From Normal 17-Jul-2004"
Nothing has broken it in all that time. I slide well tested and useful
macros in there when I'm really happy with them.

 

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

Hi Art:

Generally, it is safe to save those changes to Normal template.

Generally, it's a good idea to do so, to prevent Normal template becoming
inconsistent with your Word preference files.

The only time I tend to deny the changes is when I have been writing
throw-away macros that I do not intend to keep. Or possibly if I am
customising customer templates.

If I am working on customer documents, I will have the customer template
attached to the document. I will then treat a prompt to save Normal
Template as an indication that when I made the last change to the customer
document, I forgot to ensure that said change was saved to the correct
template (the customers). Which means I definitely do NOT want the change
to save to Normal.

That's because if I change (for example) a toolbar in the customer's
template, and the same template in my Normal template, what Word displays
for me when I have the customer document open is a mixture of the two. What
the customer will see is only the changes I made in the customer's template.
Which may mean I ship the job with "partially applied changes" which in turn
is very embarrassing to my reputation!

Hope this helps

Okay...I think I'll leave the Preferences/Save alone, since I made those
changes after skimming through Bend word to your Will a couple months ago.
Thanks for the suggestions, though. I haven't figured out if it's a good
idea to save those changes, though, or not.

Thanks for your help here...

--

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. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410