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#11
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Normal.dot versus blank document template
Hi Jacqueline:
No, I don't think you have misunderstood. This is a vexed question, and posed with the exact constraints you have, I struggle to find a clear choice in advising you. The benefit of using Normal for this purpose a * It gives you only one file to maintain * Word starts faster and performs better because it has only one file to load and hold in memory * VBA is massively simpler to write because Normal does not suffer from the context-switching that other files do. Normal is *always* in scope. * Toolbars and other customisations are *always* available to *all* documents. Again, because Normal never goes out of scope. The drawbacks include: * You blow away the user's customisations every time you update. * You can't have things "disappear" when the user doesn't need/can't use/shouldn't use them. * The user is also writing to your file, regularly and frequently. That will lead to conflicts and corruptions. * The brighter and more valuable the user, the more likely they are to be offended by this behaviour. They will then either fight you, or leave. The IT department is a "service and support" department. It is there to "serve" and "support" the users. It should NOT be attempting to "control" the users (OK, you have to make some exceptions for security, but this is not one of them :-)) If the users start to "fight" you, IT department will rapidly lose the battle -- there are more of them than there are IT staff -- collectively, they're smarter and quicker :-) I suggest that with a very little effort, we could be a lot "nicer" about this. For example, we could add one line of code to your distribution script that checks the file last saved date on the user's copy. Replace their file only if the new one is more recent. You could put a run-once macro in your Normal.dot that pops up a dialog when the user starts Word: "Your Normal template has been replaced. Your old version has been re-named as "Normal.old". If you had customised settings, please copy them from the old version to the new version. Click here to see how to do this." You could be even nicer, and make your run-once macro actually perform the merge for them :-) As to the discussion between "Normal" and "Blank Document", I wonder if there is some confusion the not in your mind, but in the minds of your instructors. In Word 2002 and later, a "Blank Document" icon appeared on the toolbar. This button does NOT necessarily create documents from Normal.dot. There are specific circumstances under which Normal.dot may not exist in these applications. If it doesn't, the blank document is produced directly from Word's hard-coded defaults. That may be what they were referring to. Hope this helps On 15/3/06 1:27 AM, in article , "Jacqueline" wrote: Previous firms I've worked with worked with two templates (blank and normal) and during a VBA training course yesterday the trainer recommended this. I then looked at previous posts on here and found suggestions for both methods. Perhaps as you say I have misunderstood these posts and the blank document template has contained 'add-ins' or similar. -- Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email me unless I ask you to. John McGhie Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410 |
#12
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Normal.dot versus blank document template
A well written summary.
In Word 2002 and later, a "Blank Document" icon appeared on the toolbar. This button does NOT necessarily create documents from Normal.dot. There are specific circumstances under which Normal.dot may not exist in these applications. If it doesn't, the blank document is produced directly from Word's hard-coded defaults. That may be what they were referring to. New icon in 2002? Which toolbar? I was under the impression that, no matter what, a Normal.dot always existed - at least in memory. Under what circumstances is this not the case? -- Enjoy, Tony |
#14
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Normal.dot versus blank document template
Hi John, Tony
I've seen at least one live case where no normal.dot existed, and I learned about it the hard way: my VBA code went looking for Normal.dot, failed to find it and crashed. So I don't just assume that it exists any more. FWIW, when Normal.dot does not exist, Application.NormalTemplate.FullName will still produce a very convincing string that consists of the UserTemplates folder & "\Normal.dot". But there may be no such file. Hope this helps. Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP. http://www.shaunakelly.com/word "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" wrote in message ... Hi Tony: It's on the Standard toolbar, I think. It's labelled "Blank Document" instead of "New Document", from memory. Yes, the Normal Template data structure always exists in memory. What I meant was that the "file" Normal.dot does not always exist. I must admit that I have never seen a case where it actually didn't. But that's because in Australia, chances are the first thing we do is change the default spelling languages from English US, and that would automatically populate the Normal Template structure with a user specification, which will force creation of a file. Cheers On 16/3/06 12:35 AM, in article , "Tony Jollans" My Forename at My Surname dot com wrote: A well written summary. In Word 2002 and later, a "Blank Document" icon appeared on the toolbar. This button does NOT necessarily create documents from Normal.dot. There are specific circumstances under which Normal.dot may not exist in these applications. If it doesn't, the blank document is produced directly from Word's hard-coded defaults. That may be what they were referring to. New icon in 2002? Which toolbar? I was under the impression that, no matter what, a Normal.dot always existed - at least in memory. Under what circumstances is this not the case? -- Enjoy, Tony -- Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email me unless I ask you to. John McGhie Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410 |
#15
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Normal.dot versus blank document template
Thanks John and Shauna,
You're really just confirming what I thought to be the case having maybe said it in a different way to start with. If Normal.dot does not exist in either place Word expects to find it, a new one will be created (from built-in defaults) in the same way that a new blank document is created if Word is started without one. If any changes are made to this normal.dot it will be saved (or the user will be prompted to save it) - again just like a new blank document. The new normal.dot does not exist in the OS's file system (neither does the new blank document) but while Word is open the source of normal.dot is not relevant. It is a tad confusing that it claims to have a path and about the only way I know to identify the situation is that the "Last Saved Time" property will give an error if it has never been saved. In my Word 2000 I have an icon on the standard toolbar tagged "New Blank Document" In my Word 2003 I have an icon on the standard toolbar tagged "New Blank Document" I'm not aware of any differences between the two in terms of what they do. -- Enjoy, Tony "Shauna Kelly" wrote in message ... Hi John, Tony I've seen at least one live case where no normal.dot existed, and I learned about it the hard way: my VBA code went looking for Normal.dot, failed to find it and crashed. So I don't just assume that it exists any more. FWIW, when Normal.dot does not exist, Application.NormalTemplate.FullName will still produce a very convincing string that consists of the UserTemplates folder & "\Normal.dot". But there may be no such file. Hope this helps. Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP. http://www.shaunakelly.com/word "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" wrote in message ... Hi Tony: It's on the Standard toolbar, I think. It's labelled "Blank Document" instead of "New Document", from memory. Yes, the Normal Template data structure always exists in memory. What I meant was that the "file" Normal.dot does not always exist. I must admit that I have never seen a case where it actually didn't. But that's because in Australia, chances are the first thing we do is change the default spelling languages from English US, and that would automatically populate the Normal Template structure with a user specification, which will force creation of a file. Cheers On 16/3/06 12:35 AM, in article , "Tony Jollans" My Forename at My Surname dot com wrote: A well written summary. In Word 2002 and later, a "Blank Document" icon appeared on the toolbar. This button does NOT necessarily create documents from Normal.dot. There are specific circumstances under which Normal.dot may not exist in these applications. If it doesn't, the blank document is produced directly from Word's hard-coded defaults. That may be what they were referring to. New icon in 2002? Which toolbar? I was under the impression that, no matter what, a Normal.dot always existed - at least in memory. Under what circumstances is this not the case? -- Enjoy, Tony -- Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not me unless I ask you to. John McGhie Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410 |
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