I’m trying to change my Word document defaults—such as the font and tab settings—and my computer keeps telling me I can’t change my Normal.dot characteristics. I even went to Help (F1) and followed the instructions, but no luck there either. Help!
I think I know what you’re doing wrong. Let’s back up a bit. Your goal is to change Word’s Normal.dot ; that’s the template for all new Word documents created on your computer. If you try to create a document and name it Normal.dot, y our computer will flash this screen:
There are two ways to change your Normal.dot . I think when you tried to open the existing Normal.dot, you probably did not open the real one. For example, if you do a search in Explorer, you’ll probably find a few of them—each in a different location. The one you want is in C:\Documents and Settings\ Y our user name \ Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dot. When you change that file and save it, it will be your new default.
There’s another way to change the default, which some users believe is easier: Open a new document and click on Format , Styles and Formatting , bringing up this screen:
If you right-click on Normal , a new screen appears with a Modify button. Click on it and use the Modify Style screen that appears to change the Normal.dot d efaults . When done, click on OK and you have a new, custom Normal.dot d efault .