Normal.dot File referencing

[13377H13F]

Say i have 3 users. John, David, Alex all admins
I make some Word changes and save the normal.dot file and and log off John.
I login as David and run word. The changes I made to the normal.dot file dont apply to Davids account.

I searched for other normal.dot files and couldnt find any but the one in the Templates folder so i dont know why word isnt applying changes made to the normal.dot files when other users log in.

TIA

 

[fumei]

Usually normal.dot is in the Templates folder of the user account.

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[13377H13F]

Thanks for the fast response.

Is there a way to get Word to reference just one normal.dot file to keep everything the same for the users?

This is office 2003.

TIA

 

[fumei]

It sounds like this is various users, using the same machine. Is this correct?

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[13377H13F]

Correct...multiple users using the same machine.

 

[TonyJollans]

Is there a way to get Word to reference just one normal.dot file to keep everything the same for the users?

It is possible (although if more than one user may be logged on at the same time it could be problematic) but I really recommend strongly against it. All sorts of things are stored in the normal template and it is not meant to be used like that. Also some things which you might think are in the Normal template are actually held in the registry (and other places) and these cannot be used by multiple users (even on the same machine). You will end up with a situation where some user settings are personal and some are machine-wide and you will have confused users and (possibly) confused admins trying to help.

Use policies and/or global templates to control the settings you want to control and let everybody have their own normal.dot.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[fumei]

I would have to agree with Tony. If you could clarify precisely what it is you want to make common to all users, perhaps we could suggest something.

A global template is a likely option.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[13377H13F]

Thank you for the both responses. I'll check into global templates instead.

Im just trying to setup word so all the users have the same interface when word starts up so they dont get confused if it looks different. You know how users are...

 

[fumei]

Except for one thing....one of the point of user normal.dot is precisely so users CAN have different interfaces. Some people like things one way...some like it another way. Generally speaking I think users should be allowed to have their application the way they work best. As long as it does not interfer with the application running that is.

I am not sure what the real issue is. If a user makes adjustments to THEIR normal.dot, then why would it ever look different? They would always get THEIR normal.dot.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[TonyJollans]

<soapbox>

Im just trying to setup word so all the users have the same interface when word starts up so they dont get confused if it looks different.

With respect, that is what happens with Word out of the box. What you are trying to do is setup Word so that it has a particular interface of your choosing for all users. Use Policies to create a default Word environment suitable for your corporate environment and then trust individual (trained) users to work in a way which best suits them to achieve your joint goals.

In an my ideal world the only changes that would ever happen to the Word interface for any one user would be those that that one user chose to make. In practice much badly behaved software (Word itself to some extent, and various third party AddIns) makes semi-permanent changes. If such changes happened to a single user of your machine that user just might know what had caused them (and might even want them) but the other users of the machine would be totally confused if they were sharing the same normal.dot.

There are two (relevant) things that are reasonable in a corporate environment. One is that documents are produced according to corporate styles and standards - and that is what global templates (other than normal) are for. Actually there is only one thing and that's it! I was also going to say that it was reasonable to disallow use of certain capabilities of Word but as that is impossible to impose technically it must be done through training - and that is the real answer to almost all questions of this nature. If you allow untrained users to work with any kind of tool, they are going to (a) struggle and (b) produce poor work. if you, conversely, try and impose constraints on your experienced users you will (a) fail, (b) frustrate them and (c) get poor quality work. Spot the common factor?

You know how users are...

Yes, I'm a user. You know how admins are...

Users are, to a large extent, how you make them. treat them with contempt and they will be the bane of your life. Treat them with respect and you will get your reward.

Ever since I have been in the computer business (some 30 years) I have been faced with attempts by admins to impose working methods on users - as far as I can tell only because the admins often know less than their users and are afraid of being shown up. I'd almost accept it if it made for administrative simplicity but it never does. I have never been faced with any such attempt which has been successful. The latest one is Word 2007 and this time the guilty party is Microsoft and this time, too, it will fail; quite frankly, they should know better.

I do not understand why corporations seem to hold certain ideas immutable despite their experience. If you're British and old enough you might understand this: for at least 30 years 'they' have been trying to provide facilities which allow the British public to interact with their television sets and do things unrelated to television programmes (remember Prestel?). Every single such attempt has been unsuccessful; for whatever reason the British public don't want it. Despit this they keep on pumping money into providing new facilities of the same sort. Why? What looks like may happen now is that television programmes will be delivered to the computer and the public will accept the marriage of the two technologies that way but television banking, say, just wasn't ever going to catch on (I have my ideas why they don't work but that's not the issue here - they don't succeed and companies still keep pouring money into them).

I seem to have written rather a lot here; better post it and move on

</soapbox>

Enjoy,
Tony

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