Changes to Toolbars aren't Persistent

Jack has a new system that has Word 2003 installed on it. He is trying to make changes to the Standard and Formatting toolbars, but whenever he quits Word and restarts, those changes are all gone--the toolbars are back to their default conditions.

There are a couple of things that could be causing the problem. First, it is important to understand that changes to the toolbars are stored in the Normal.dot template file. If the template is not saved, then the changes won't be persistent; they won't be available the next time you use Word.

First, if you are working on a network, you need to check to see if your Normal.dot file has been configured to reside on a shared network drive. If so, the file could be overwritten by others on your network who are using the same file. It is also possible that the file is on a protected network directory so that it cannot be changed. If either of these is a possibility, talk to your network admin and see what can be done to use your own Normal.dot instead of the same as everyone else.

The more likely problem, however, is that you may have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat on your new system. Acrobat has this annoying habit of ensuring that any changes you've made to Normal.dot are not saved automatically. Instead, you need to explicitly save the changes. One way to do this is to make sure you use Save All after making changes to your toolbars. To see this command, hold down the Shift key as you click the File menu. You'll notice that the Save command has been replaced with Save All. Select this option, and the currently open document is saved, along with any templates--including Normal.dot.

If you prefer, you can add the Save All option to your File menu so that it appears all the time. Follow these steps:

1. Choose Customize from the Tools menu. Word displays the Customize dialog box.
2. Make sure the Commands tab is displayed. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. In the Categories list, select File. The items in the Commands list change to reflect your choice.
4. Scroll through the Commands list and choose Save All.
5. Use the mouse to Drag the Save All option to the place you want it to appear on the File menu.
6. Close the Customize dialog box.

Now, it is important that you click the new Save All command right away. Why? Because you've just made a configuration change that is saved in Normal.dot. If you exit Word without making sure that Normal.dot is saved (by clicking Save All), then the change isn't saved, and the next time you start Word the menu will be back to normal.