[Tecolote]

I use Word 2000 with Windows XP and have downloaded all upgrades for Office 2000. Since I moved to a new computer, Word 2000 saves Normal.dot upfront every time I exit Word, so that Normal.dot now always shows up at the head of Word files I last used on the File drop-down menu.

If there any way to prevent this? On my old computer, Word 2000 never took up space in the drop-down listing of 9 last-used documents to list Normal.dot every time. I can't find an option stop this.

Thanks for any suggestions!

[Anne Troy]

You must have a normal.dot file in your Word startup folder. I would go search for all instances of normal.dot and delete them. See Step 3 at www.theofficeexperts.com/word.htm
There's info too on how to FIND normal.dot, just in case your settings don't let you.

[Tecolote]

Dreamboat,

Many thanks for your advice! You've hit the nail on the head (again)! As soon as I renamed normal.dot, the constant-saving-of-normal.dot by Word 2000 stopped. I have some macros and customized toolbars that are part of the renamed normal.dot, so I want to learn about Organizer, which I've never used.

I read your excellent article (www.theofficeexperts.com/word.htm) and also the Microsoft support paper (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q214215/). From these I understand there ought now to be a normal.dot freshly created by Word, but I simply can't find one anywhere on my computer now when I do a search. (I've got Folder Options set to show all files, including hidden and system.) Won't I need to find it in order to use Organizer to import the settings from my old normal.dot?

Thanks very much for your generous help!

[Anne Troy]

Right, but if you're searching, you MUST tell WinXP to search for hidden & system files, too. THAT is prolly what's wrong. Even if you say "show", you must also change the search to see them. OR go to Tools-Options, File locations tab in Word, and look for User templates location.

[Tecolote]

Dreamboat-

Thank you again for your help at a distance.... I've spent a couple of hours trying to find a newly created normal.dot, now that I renamed the original one (which has stopped the constant saving of normal.dot). I did what you suggested, telling WinXP to search for hidden & system files, search system folders, and search subfolders. The search doesn't find any file called "normal.dot".

I've also gone to Word's Tools>Options>File locations>User templates, where the file location for templates on my computer is given as: C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. In that folder there are document templates I've designed in the past, as well as the renamed normal.dot (now called Oldnormal.dot). But there's no normal.dot listed -- anywhere that I can find.

When I've gone to Tools>Templates and Add-Ins, the top Document Template window lists "Normal". But under Global Templates and Add-Ins, the window is blank; when I click on Add, I see a list of my old templates, but no normal.dot. When I click on Organizer, under Styles Available In, "Normal.dot (global template)" IS listed. But I can't find it anywhere on my computer.

If you have any suggestions, it would make my day! Thank you again for your help.

[Tecolote]

Dreamboat - This is a follow-up to my last posting. I discovered (if I'm right) that only after using the template Organizer (transferring the settings from my original but renamed normal.dot (Oldnormal.dot) to a new normal.dot) is a replacement normal.dot created by Word. As soon as used Organizer, suddenly "normal.dot" appeared among my other template files. There was no file by that name before.

Unfortunately, no sooner was this done than Word now reverts to the same problem of saving normal.dot every time I quit Word, and listing normal.dot as the first of the last files used (at the bottom of the drop-down File menu). If you have any suggestions, please they'd be most welcome.

Many thanks!

[Anne Troy]

1. Not possible. Word creates a new one. I have often believed that a file (any file) must be saved before the new normal.dot is created--in other words, normal.dot isn't created by just opening and closing Word. But I've never tested it.

2. Something you are transferring from your old to your new normal.dot is corrupt. I suggest rebuilding your settings from scratch after you again get rid of the current normal.dot. What's in there, dude? Any macros?

[Tecolote]

Dreamboat -

(Again, thanks for spending time on this.) I think I found the culprit. http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;291352 talks about the possibility of Word add-ins creating this problem. I got Word to list the add-ins that are loaded. There was just one that was checked -- for OmniPage 14, software that I bought recently. When I unchecked the OmniPage add-in, the constant saving of normal.dot stopped.

Now I'm wondering if I leave the OmniPage add-in uncheched whether OmniPage will still route OCR-ed text to Word, but I'll find this out.

To answer your last question, yes there are just two macros that I had recorded: one to get Word to turn off the horizontal scroll bar, the other to turn it back on.

[Anne Troy]

Originally Posted by Tecolote

Now I'm wondering if I leave the OmniPage add-in uncheched whether OmniPage will still route OCR-ed text to Word, but I'll find this out.

Probably. My PDFWriter still works.

What don't you like about the horizontal scrollbar?

[Anne Troy]

If you're going to use macros, you could use one like this:
http://www.vbaexpress.com/kb/getarticle.php?kb_id=65

[Tecolote]

Dreamboat,

I don't like the horizontal scroll bar because it just occupies space on the screen that I can use. I write books; they are all in portrait orientation; and I never need to scroll horizontally unless I (rarely) have to enlarge something a lot.

Thanks for the link to the code you wrote to open Word documents in a pre-determined way. Very neat!

I like to understand as much as I can about such things as normal.dot, and it did seem to be the case that Word 2000 only created a replacement normal.dot when I transferred settings with Organizer from my Oldnormal.dot. I did create and save 3-4 Word documents after renaming the original normal.dot, and checked to see if a new normal.dot had been created, but none was. A new one *first* appeared on stage only when I used the template Organizer. --At least that's how it was on this system.

Again, applause for your kind help!

[Anne Troy]

Anytime. You can mark your thread solved using the Thread Tools dropdown at the top of the page.

[Tecolote]

Dreamboat - Marked solved. Thank you again very much!

[moty]

I followed this thread, but still having the problem of Word saving normal.dot upon exit.
I renamed normal.dot, removed all from the two startup folders, no macros seems to be present, no add-ins and no Com+. Word insists on saving the global template with no aparent reason. Since I use automation with Word, this causes a problem when I open multiple files. Upon exit, Word prompts me that Normal.dot cannot be saved because it's in use by another user or session, which is true, except there is no real need to save Normal.dot. Please HELP !

[Anne Troy]

Sounds to me like your automation is incomplete. I have to add Application.AttachedTemplate.Saved = True (or some such line of code) to make sure it doesn't try to save whenever I have custom toolbars in my template.