The Normal template opens in the background whenever you start Word.

It includes default styles, AutoText, macros, toolbars, and other customizations that determine the basic look of your document.

The Normal template is a global template that you can use for any type of document. You can modify this template to change the default document formatting or content.

If this gets damaged or corrupt, here’s how to fix it:

1. On the File menu, click Open, and then navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates.

Tip: If no templates are listed in the Open dialog box, click the arrow next to the Files of type box, and then click Document Templates.

2. Double-click the Normal.dot file to open it.

To be certain that you’re working in the default template, check to see that Normal.dot appears in the Word title bar.

3. Make any changes you want, using the menus and dialog boxes just as you would to change default settings for a document.

BUT remember that any changes you make to Normal.dot will be applied to documents that you create in the future.

4. When you have finished, on the Standard toolbar click Save.

Note. If Normal.dot is renamed, damaged, or moved, Word automatically creates a new version (i.e. and uses the original default settings) the next time that you start Word. The new version will not include any customizations you made to the version that you renamed or moved.

If you have any problems, please drop me a line.

Ivan Walsh is a technology writer based in Shanghai, China.
Learn how to save time, make money and develop digital products.

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MS Word can be interesting at times. What I’d like to show you today is how to minimize (ie remove) the amount of metadata in your Word documents.

Whenever you create, open, or save a Word document, it creates metadata. Metadata is used for a variety of purposes to enhance the editing, viewing, filing, and retrieval of Office documents.

Here are some examples of metadata that may be stored in your documents:

• Your name
• Your initials
• Your company or organization name
• The name of your computer
• The name of the network server or hard disk where you saved the document
• Other file properties and summary information
• Non-visible portions of embedded OLE objects
• The names of previous document authors
• Document revisions
• Document versions
• Template information
• Hidden text

Metadata is created in a variety of ways in Word documents. As a result, there is no single method to remove all such content from your documents.

This s a Word Visual Basic macro. Usage requires Microsoft Word that supports Visual Basic macros  (Word 97+).

Features

• Replaces smart quotes/double-quotes with dumb equivalents
• Escapes the following characters: * # { } [ ] ~ ^^ | '
• Converts external hyperlinks
• Converts H1-H5 headings
• Converts bold/italic/underline/strikethrough/superscript/subscript formatting
• Converts bulleted/numbered lists
• Converts simple tables.

Caveats

• No guarantees, no official support, just like the
• No in-document hyperlink conversion
• May not work well with documents that have highly customized styles/templates. It works best with documents written in the default "Normal" template
• Nested tables have not been tested and may not function as expected.
• Image/graphics/figures are not supported.

Installation

1. Download the Word2MediaWiki macro library
2. Start Word
3. Bring up the Visual Basic Editor (Tools->Macro->Visual Basic Editor or Alt+F11).
4. From the VBE, import the macro library (File->Import File…) and select the file you downloaded.

Usage

1. Open a word document to convert
2. Run the Word2MediaWiki macro by bringing up the Macros dialog (Tools->Macro->Macros… or Alt+F8), selecting Word2MediaWiki and clicking Run.
3. The macro converts the document to MediaWiki markup and places a copy of the content on the system clipboard.
4. Switch to a MediaWiki editor and paste the result.

CNET Asia has given a glowing review to WordPipe. Technical writers and those involved in communications will appreciate its ability to automatically search and Replace multiple Microsoft Word documents.

Key features allow you to:

• Change hyperlinks and UNC paths when servers get renamed
• Update names, addresses and phone numbers
• Translate documents with find/replace lists
• Automatically handles read-only files, passwords and other protection.
• No user interaction required.
• Replace hyperlinks, bookmarks, text boxes, shapes, drop down fields, and document properties.
• Updates ISO version numbers. Unicode compliant.
• Version 5.9.3 has added ability to update OLE and DDE links.

Download WordPipe 5.9.3 free download

For technical writers and information developers involved in writing scientific and technical articles, this Word Add-In includes support for the National Library of Medicine XML format. Use this add-in to read/write XML-based documents in the format used by the National Library of Medicine for archiving scientific articles.

This Article Authoring Add-in for Microsoft Word 2007 provides gives writers of scientific articles the ability to read and write files from Word 2007 into the XML format used by the National Library of Medicine for archiving articles in the U.S. National Institutes of Health free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature, PubMed Central.

It is targeted at the staff of scientific and technical journals, Information Repositories, and early adopters within the scholarly authoring community, as well as developers of publishing solutions and workflows.

Free Download: Article Authoring Add-in

Microsoft Office 2007 saves files in the .docx format, whereas Word 97-2003 saves them in .doc format. The .docx format will cause difficulties if you want to share your Word 2007 documents with colleagues who still use Word 2003. They won’t be able to open them! There is a way around this, however.

Open Word 2007 and change the Save settings. This lets you save your documents in a format that is compatible with earlier versions of Word.

To save Word 2007 documents in Word 2003 format:

1. Click the Office button
2. Click Word Options
3. Open the Save options
4. Beside Save files in this format, select Word 97-2003
5. Click OK

Your documents will be saved in the .doc format, which allows 2003 users to open them.

1001 Word Tips at: www.wordtipsandtricks.com

This plug-in from ClickBook lets you print customized day planner pages, wallet booklets, church bulletins, brochures, greeting cards, posters, business cards, flipbooks, catalogs, banners, microfiche, CD covers and more from Internet, Windows, or CD-Rom files! It also lets you scale and rotate digital photos, e-mails, documents, favorite on-line content, or other critical information into convenient layouts.

How does it work?

ClickBook works much like a print driver. It intercepts pages going to laser or inkjet printers and automatically rotates, reduces and realigns pages into the correct order to create double-sided booklets and brochures. ClickBook even prints an instruction sheet showing exactly how to reinsert paper for double-sided printing.

Tip: You can now print multi-page Banners and Posters (Windows XP, 2000, 2003, Vista only)

ClickBook works with most Windows application, such as Word, Internet Explorer, and FireFox, CompuServe, AOL, Excel, Access, WordPerfect, and Encarta.

Link: http://www.clickbook.com/