[BC] Re: normal.dot

[Gary Schnabl]

> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 10
> From: RichardBJohnson at comcast.net
> 	<020620091540.20570.498C5A07000202DC0000505A221475640202019C020801B6BD0B9D0E080C07AD at comcast.net>
> 	
>
> Thanks, fixed by deleting file normal.dot
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Richard B. Johnson
> http://www.LymanSchool.org
>   
You should alter the Word options so that you get an alert every time 
the Normal.dot file is modified. Then, you will have an option to 
manually save the file or not when closing the Word application. 
Otherwise, the file would autosave and you would again might have some 
other peculiar formatting applied to the normal New file template. 
Either you or Word modified the Normal.dot template by doing 
something--probably something that you never knew you did...

BTW, when using Word 2007, the template is named Normal.dotm, where m 
stands for macro. It's normally found in the 
C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates folder when 
using Vista, where <UserName> is the log-in name, or something similar. 
When "deleting" it, you could rename it anything other than Normal.dotm 
and Word will recreate a brand new template when the Word application is 
closed and afterwards reopened the next time.

The norm is to name it Normal_Old.dotm or some such. You can later go 
back and reclaim some of its formatting after the new Normal.dotm file 
is created with Word's factory defaults. It's possible that all or some 
of the formatting on the old template could be reused. [Do a Web search 
to learn how...] Otherwise, the new template just contains the vanilla 
formatting from Microsoft.

OOo is a good substitute for Word 2007. I have been the lead technical 
editor (and final copyeditor and template writer) for the OpenOffice 
user guides the past three years (the OOoAuthors documentation project). 
Some of the OOo user guides are still being written, though. Namely, the 
Base (database) and Impress (presentation) components. Actually, the 
Writer (Word analog) user guide is what I work on the most.

-- 

Gary Schnabl
2775 Honorah
Detroit MI 48209