A reminder about normal.dot

Question

Since the majority of problems with Word seem to be concerned with a corrupt normal.dot, I'm posting the information below. Please note that a new normal.dot is not created until a change is made (such as default font) and the Save All menu choice is made.

The Normal.Dot template holds a special place in the hearts of long‐time Word users. It is the place where many of your customizations are held. In Word, Normal.Dot is available for all documents, even on a freshly installed system. Historically, if you delete Normal.Dot and then restart Word, the program creates a brand new version of Normal.Dot with everything configured for Word's default settings.

Not so in Word 2002 and Word 2003. If you do a fresh install of Word, or if you delete Normal.Dot, Word will not create a brand new template from scratch when restarting. Instead, it appears that the default values that used to be written to Normal.Dot are maintained internally in Word, without the need of being written. This is confirmed by the following wording in Microsoft's Knowledge Base article 290232:

"…if the global template (Normal.dot) does not exist in Microsoft Word with which to create a blank document, Word uses its internally stored settings to create a new blank document."

So when does Word create Normal.Dot? When you make a change to the defaults. For instance, if you change the default font or customize a toolbar, then the template is created. From that time on you can load and modify Normal.Dot as you would like.

This is, of course, a big change in the way Word handles templates. Thus, if you are running a Help Desk, and you instruct a Word user to delete their Normal.Dot and restart Word, they cannot automatically load up Normal.Dot and start making changes in it. Instead, you will need to instruct the user to do some task that forces Word to create Normal.Dot (such as setting the default font), restart Word (the new Normal.Dot should be saved upon exiting), and then load and modify Normal.Dot.

This process for creating a new version of Normal.Dot is discussed a bit in Microsoft's Knowledge Base article 291291. Notice that the article says you have to force a save (Save All) in order to save the change to the default font. This is when Normal.Dot is actually created.

Denny Denham · Answer

abach, Thanks for that--most useful. (And you've still forgotten more about Office than I ever knew.)

RoHe · Answer

Allan,
Thanks, very interesting.

But here's a question. I dare say that a large percentage of Word users don't ever change the built-in settings in Word (ie, they never create/save normal.dot). Then why are so many Word 2003 problems fixed by deleting normal.dot? Don't think I've ever seen a post where a user told to delete normal.dot has come back to say it isn't found on their system.

Or is it that when Word 2003 screws up, that's because it created a (corrupt) normal.dot even when the user didn't make/save any changes to the built-in settings? Another microsoft imponderable...?

Ron

abach · Answer

If you delete the normal.dot, then restart Word, there is no file created named normal.dot. So, until a user exits Word or makes a default change, the normal.dot does not exist. For most people this is not a problem. Since the user seems to have his/her problem resolved, they reply to the post that the problem is fixed. After they exit, then restart Word, the problem may come back (though usually not). The important thing to understand is how a new normal.dot is created after an existing one is deleted. Word will start and work with no normal.dot file. This was not the way Word worked prior to 2002. If the user still has a problem when restarting Word, it may be another template that is loaded in the Word Startup folder.

It isn't necessary to get too technical on this point. Just remember that Word can work without a normal template, and some settings are stored in the registry. This is why I will follow up on a problem with instructions to delete the data key in the registry for Word.

ky331 · Answer

allan, you just said, 'until a user exits Word or makes a default change'...  just to be sure i'm understanding, normal.dot is [created, if it doesn't exist; and then] updated every time a user exits word, regardless of whether he/she 'did' anything while running word?

abach · Answer

The normal.dot is updated the first time Word is exited after an old normal.dot is deleted (or a fresh installation of Word occurs), then it is only updated when changes are made. If I open Word for the first time, when I exit, a normal.dot is created. It will only be modified if I make a change, such as default font, add a button to a toolbar, etc.

However, a normal.dot can corrupt at any time. I usually attribute this to a file that begins with a ~ (example ~yfile.doc) This may even happen to a normal.dot file, where a search finds a file named something like ~ormal.dot. When the user tries to open Word again, a problem may occur. This tells me the user had Word lock up I've even seen two instances of Word at one time (Task Manager, Processes, winword.exe listed twice) and this can cause a problem.

Also, remember to look at what is starting with Word - Tools, Templates and Add-ins, Global Templates (stored in Word's startup folder)

Julzie · Answer

Allan, you're a gem. Have a { { { { { { { { {hug}}}}}}}}}}}}}}.
Okay, let me see if I am understanding this... I'm old and
dense so bear with me, okay?

I want to delete my Normal dot in Word 2003. My Word is running
ever so s l o w and driving me nuts. If i just delete the Normal.dot,
it won't help, correct? because I did that and it did not seem to help
the problem at all.

So can you be kind to an old hag and tell me exactly what i need to do?
Do I change the default something, like the font or the margin, and THEN
delete it? Or what?

Many thanks.

abach · Answer

Thanks for the kind words. You can just click Format, Font, then click the Default button, answer Yes, close, then reopen Word.

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A reminder about normal.dot

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