My Microsoft Word page is stuck! A document I wrote months ago opens as the main page. Can anyone help?

Question

Every time I open my Microsoft Word page, a document I wrote months ago comes up. It's the same document... and no matter what I do it won't permanently go away, I’ve already tried reinstalling it. How do I get a blank page up the next time I open Microsoft word? Any suggestions??

Answer 1

Sounds like you've wiped out your Normal.dot template. Do this:

1. Close MS Word.
2. Look in c:\Documents and Settings\your username\Application Data\Microsoft\templates for normal.dot.
3. Rename it something else (in case this doesn't fix the problem -- you can name it back).
4. Open Word, it should recreate it.

Answer 2

You can type an entire chapter at once and Word will format the pages with the right number of lines, etc. When you want to start a new Chapter, use a Page Break. This will begin the next line on a new page. I wrote my book in one document using Page Breaks for chapters. ~

Answer 3

I am guessing that the document somehow got saved with the name "normal.doc". That is the file that Word opens whenever it is started. Do a "Search" for the file "normal.doc". Delete (or rename) any that you find. Once there is no normal.doc, Word will automatically recreate a new blank one.

Hopefully that will fix the problem.

Answer 4

sounds like it could be that the document was somehow converted to be your normal template. Try searching for the "normal.dot" file. Rename it to "normal.bak" and then open Word again. It should create a new normal.dot and give you a blank document.

Answer 5

Try erasing everything from the document and then resaving it as the default template. Help will give instructions on creating a new template.

Answer 6

Try finding the file in My Documents and deleting it. I have no idea why you cannot delete it in Word.