Normal.dot - Clearing Tabs

A request for advice: how do you clear tab settings that
have been previously set in normal.dot? My previous
attempts have included opening into Word from normal.dot,
opening Format|Tabs and clearing all, saving changes and
exiting. But when I re-enter Word, the tabs are all there
again. Is there a default button somewhere that I am
missing?

For those who answered my previous post about this
office's network usage of normal.dot, I am also wondering
if this is a problem arising because of that.

Cheers
MarieC

Tab settings are part of paragraph styles. For a start, you probably need to
modify the Normal style (if it contains tab settings), then check the box
for "Add to template" so your changes will be saved to Normal.dot. For more,
see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...alTemplate.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"MarieC" wrote in message
...
A request for advice: how do you clear tab settings that
have been previously set in normal.dot? My previous
attempts have included opening into Word from normal.dot,
opening Format|Tabs and clearing all, saving changes and
exiting. But when I re-enter Word, the tabs are all there
again. Is there a default button somewhere that I am
missing?

For those who answered my previous post about this
office's network usage of normal.dot, I am also wondering
if this is a problem arising because of that.

Cheers
MarieC

Probably also worth noting that if a paragraph doesn't have tab stops (or
runs out of stops) then Word uses the 'default tab stops' for the document.
Those can be set from the Tabs dialog you get from Format Tabs (but
obviously not from the one you get from the Modify Style dialog).

The default tab stops can't be 'deleted' but if you change the setting to 0
they have no effect (any tab characters in the text just pile up invisibly).
There's no option to save back to Normal.dot as far as I can see, so you'd
have to open Normal.dot itself to make that change I think.

On the shared Normal.dot - I wouldn't like to guess what effect this will
have, but it's quite possible that a) your 'Add to template' changes won't
actually be saved because Normal never gets closed or that b) even if your
settings do get saved someone else will overwrite. Getting local Normal.dots
really is the top priority here :-)

--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word




"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Tab settings are part of paragraph styles. For a start, you probably need
to
modify the Normal style (if it contains tab settings), then check the box
for "Add to template" so your changes will be saved to Normal.dot. For
more,
see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...alTemplate.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"MarieC" wrote in message
...
A request for advice: how do you clear tab settings that
have been previously set in normal.dot? My previous
attempts have included opening into Word from normal.dot,
opening Format|Tabs and clearing all, saving changes and
exiting. But when I re-enter Word, the tabs are all there
again. Is there a default button somewhere that I am
missing?

For those who answered my previous post about this
office's network usage of normal.dot, I am also wondering
if this is a problem arising because of that.

Cheers
MarieC

Thanks very much for your help, Margaret and Suzanne

(1) The Network Normal.dot Issue...

To try things out on my machine before I attempt to
achieve implementation on everyone elses, I have set my
own normal.dot to C:drive for now. I have attached the
office-standard macros, toolbars, styles and current
autotext from the network normal.dot to my own
normal.dot. All is working fine.

The only issue preventing me from suggesting I now set
everyone up the same way is that we update the autotext
entries sometimes as much as twice or three times a week,
and it is not very viable to go around to everyone's
machine to copy them over each time this is done. Do you
know of any other techniques to handle a situation like
this?

(2) The Unwanted Tab Stops

I have removed them via paragraph styles, as suggested.

I had previously tried going into the network normal.dot
directly (first getting everyone to log out of the
program so that changes could be saved), and clearing the
tab settings from within Format|Tabs. However, it seems
normal.dot will not save default settings this way.

I have not been able to change the 1.27cm default tab
setting in normal.dot either through Format|Tabs or
paragraph styles.

Your help is hugely appreciated.

Cheers
MarieC

-----Original Message-----
Probably also worth noting that if a paragraph doesn't
have tab stops (or
runs out of stops) then Word uses the 'default tab
stops' for the document.
Those can be set from the Tabs dialog you get from
Format Tabs (but
obviously not from the one you get from the Modify Style
dialog).

The default tab stops can't be 'deleted' but if you
change the setting to 0
they have no effect (any tab characters in the text just
pile up invisibly).
There's no option to save back to Normal.dot as far as I
can see, so you'd
have to open Normal.dot itself to make that change I
think.

On the shared Normal.dot - I wouldn't like to guess what
effect this will
have, but it's quite possible that a) your 'Add to
template' changes won't
actually be saved because Normal never gets closed or
that b) even if your
settings do get saved someone else will overwrite.
Getting local Normal.dots
really is the top priority here :-)

--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word




"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in
message
...
Tab settings are part of paragraph styles. For a
start, you probably need
to
modify the Normal style (if it contains tab settings),
then check the box
for "Add to template" so your changes will be saved to
Normal.dot. For
more,
see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...omizeNormalTem
plate.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-
ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"MarieC" wrote
in message
...
A request for advice: how do you clear tab settings
that
have been previously set in normal.dot? My previous
attempts have included opening into Word from
normal.dot,
opening Format|Tabs and clearing all, saving changes
and
exiting. But when I re-enter Word, the tabs are all
there
again. Is there a default button somewhere that I am
missing?

For those who answered my previous post about this
office's network usage of normal.dot, I am also
wondering
if this is a problem arising because of that.

Cheers
MarieC



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