If you’re using Word 2007, click the Office orb, then Word Options. It’s probably already turned on, but let’s make sure. Luckily, Word has another way to regularly save your document: AutoRecover. If the new document you just created doesn’t crash Word, you can continue to use Abnormal.īut since saving a file this way depends on your work habits, it’s not entirely reliable (no offense intended). Select My templates, then Abnormal (or whatever you named the file).
In Word, click the Office orb (Word 2007) or the File ribbon tab (Word 2010), and click New. When you relaunch Word, it will recreate a new Normal.dotm file containing Microsoft’s default settings.ĭepending on how corrupt your Normal template is, you may still be able to load it after Word is up.
Otherwise, if you have another backup, see if you can restore the file from that. Try restoring one of the versions that comes up and see if it helps. Right-click the file Normal.dotx (or Normal.dotm) and select Restore previous versions. Windows 7 users may be able to do this even if they haven’t been consciously backing up. By changing the name of the Normal.dot file, you can bring Word back to its out-of-the-box condition.If you’ve customized Word considerably–changing styles or writing macros (especially writing macros)–a restored backup is your best bet.
