Word 2010: protect normal.dotm?

Topic

New Reply

Hi all,

I’m making a long overdue leap from Word 2003 to Word 2010. Things have changed a little. :-).

Waaay back when, in Word 2003, I elected to lock down/protect/make read-only my instance of normal.dot. The idea was to keep badly designed templates/documents from elsewhere from impacting my local copy of normal.dot. It was also to prevent me from shooting myself in the foot.

I am playing around in Word 2010 (that ribbon is interesting and amusing), and it seems that normal.dotm is the successor to the old normal.dot.

I would love to hear some opinions on the pros and cons of locking down normal.dotm in Word 2010. I’ve searched around a bit but I don’t think I’ve hit on the right search phrase. I would appreciate any insights that anyone has to offer.

Arianna

Reply | Quote

Replies

I think the same still applies. The following is from a question and answer about fixing a corrupted normal.dotm, but I think the first couple of points about preventing possible unwanted changes are relevant:

First thing you can do is disable updating of normal.dot. File tab / Options command / Advanced option / Editing Options section. Turn on “prompt to update style” (optional). Save Section, turn on “Prompt before saving Normal Template”. OK out. Now, when you are closing Word, if something tries to update normal.dot, you will get a prompt and can say NO to save. In theory, your normal will not be corrupted now.

If you want more security, locate your normal.dotm and turn on the file read-only property. This makes it even harder for “rogue” processes to update your normal.dotm file.

My Normal.dotm template gets corrupted

Bruce

Reply | Quote