Customizing Default Document

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phil James
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Phil James

Help!

I can customize paragraph format, font, and a few other things. What I
can't customize is page layout (to give "first page different") and turn on
automatic hyphenation.

I tried to do this by modifying "Normal.dot" but Word won't let me save the
modified version nor delete the unmodified one.

How do I do this?

Phil
 
FWIW, I
suspect that the hyphenation setting is stored in the Registry
rather than
Normal.dot.
Click to expand...

I just tested creating a custom template with the hyphenation option
enabled, and it seems to be working: Whenever I create a new file from
that template, hyphenation is enabled. Perhaps you are saying that you
believe it works differently for normal.dot?
 
I would be pleased to believe it works this way. I just don't see anything
in the hyphenation dialog that suggests that the setting is being saved with
the document or that there is any way to save it in a template. But it would
make sense that it is stored in the document, and that if you open the
template and make the change there it would be stored with the template. In
that case, there is no reason that it should be any different for
Normal.dot. This would be clearer if there were hyphenation settings in
Tools | Options (on the Spelling and Grammar tab, which could become a
Language tab), since there are already settings there that are
language-specific (such as "Hide spelling errors in this document"). If
there were an "Add to template" option similar to the one in Format | Style
| Modify, that would be useful, too.

Since I don't ever use auto hyphenation, I'm not familiar with this feature,
and ISTR that in Publisher it is well-nigh impossible to set it even for an
entire document (seems to be a text-box-specific setting).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Thanks, Suzanne and Stephan.

Here's my experience:

You can create any custom template with any features you want -- except
Normal.dot! Try to save Normal.dot after modifying and you can't. Also,
you can't delete it or rename it, so you can't replace it. That problem is
what I'm trying to get around.

Any ideas?

Phil
 
See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CustomizeNormalTemplate.htm. You
cannot create Normal.dot (or a substitute for it that will work), but you
can certainly edit it. If you find that you can't delete or rename it, then
it's possible that it is saved in a network folder for which you don't have
the requisite permissions. This is *not* the way Normal.dot should be used;
see “You cannot share the Normal.dot file among multiple users in Word” at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811468

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Suzanne...

I was able to change the page layout for Normal.dot by doing that first
before changing the style and "saving to template." But the same approach
doesn't work for hyphenation.

I know you said you don't have much experience with automatic hyphenation,
but perhaps you can find something for me better than I can for myself. If
you go to Tools>Language>Hyphenation there's a dialog box which allows you
to make choices regarding hyphenation. Even if I select "Automatic
Hyphenation" before doing other things, the saved Normal.dot doesn't show it
like it shows the page layout.

Any further thoughts? Anyone you know who might?

Thanks again...

Phil
 
I just tested, and if I open normal.dot as a file, via File>Open, I
can certainly enable hyphenation for it, save and then get hyphenation
enabled for each new blank document. I can't explain why it doesn't
work for you, though. A bug affecting certain releases of Word,
perhaps? In my opinion, the fact that other changes are allowed
supports this theory.
 
Stefan...

That's encouraging news. I'll try it again.

You're right: If all the other stuff works I don't see a reason that that
wouldn't.

Phil
 
Stefan...

Just tried it again. I open a new document, change the hyphenation, change
the page layout, change style (a font), check "add to template," then get
out of the nested instructions, and yes, the hyphenation (and everything
else) is present for that document. But if I delete it and get a new one,
everything stays except the hyphenation option. Unless somebody comes up
with a better idea, I guess I'll just have to change it for each document --
though that seems as if it should be unnecessary.

I'm running Windows 98 Second Edition and Office 2000 on an IBM ThinkPad
A27m. Know of any quirks with any of those items?

Thanks for trying!

Phil

PS: I might just post that particular question and see if anybody else
responds.
 
You cannot transfer hyphenation settings via "Add to template", since
it's not a style thing, but a global document property. You can change
the template if you open it via File>Open, but for existing documents
you need to perform the change manually for each document.
 
To add to what Stefan has said, if the template in question is Normal.dot,
then you will have to open Normal.dot for editing and make the change there.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Finally got it to work. I think what I was doing was trying to save
Normal.dot in one of the My Documents files. When I called it up from its
own location and saved it back there after revision, everything worked fine.

Thanks, both of you, for your help!

Phil
 
You're welcome.

--
Stefan Blom


Phil James said:
Finally got it to work. I think what I was doing was trying to save
Normal.dot in one of the My Documents files. When I called it up from its
own location and saved it back there after revision, everything worked fine.

Thanks, both of you, for your help!

Phil


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