Sharing Macros via the Normal.dot

[briansdell]

Up till recently our company shared its macros and autotext by storing them in a normal.dot file and place the file in network folder. Each computer was setup so that when a user opened word it would use the normal on the network. I work really well on person could make changes to a single file that would be made available to everyone from one location.
So what happened? We upgraded to Office 2003 and it all stopped working. Seem you can share the normal.dot file anymore, this has created a hardship for our company as we make many and frequent changes to our macros and autotext. Every time a changes is made we now have to copy the normal to everyone of the users computers before the have access to the updates.
I need a way to share a set of global macros and autotext with all my users without have to touch every computer. Any ideas would be a big help this problem is a real impact to our staff and firm.

Thanks
Brian

 

[fumei]

I am not using 2003, but are you saying that you can NOT point Word to a common normal.dot? Some thoughts.

1. It is a bad idea to have your macros and autotext in normal.dot anyway. It is the file most commonly used (by deleting it) to troubleshoot Word. Even Microsoft states that normal.dot gets corrupted easily.

2. It is much better to have your macros and autotext in a separate global template.

3. Globals can be loaded at Startup (NOT the username Startup, but the Program Files Startup - which can also be different from the Tools > Option > File Locations Startup). Or they can be loaded (and unloaded) dynamically.

4. It is still possible to have ONE global template file containing your macros and autotext that would be accessible to your users. How you would do that depends on whether you want it loaded on startup, or dyna,ically; by user action, or automation.

The easiest way is if you can script on login, the copy of the file to the local machine. I know you state you do not want to touch each machine, but if you want to ensure that it isd available you may have to. Even a batch file like:

Copy "X:\User-Utilities\Global.DOT\Global.dot" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Startup"
Pause

would load that global to the user. All macros and autotext are in it.

Gerry

 

[rschaaf]

I agree with Gerry, but would like to add a trick:

don't copy the file global.dot to all the users' startup folders. You may end up with different users having different versions of the global.dot, if they don't update it using your batch file.

I also use a 'global.dot' but copy only a LINK to this file into the users' startup folders. This link does never have to be updated! Changes to the global.dot can however only be made when nobody has Word running. Therefore I use a copy, global_a.dot, to make changes. then, I don't shutdown my PC and run a scheduled task in the night, copying 'global_a.dot to 'global.dot'. The users won't notice, and in the morning they can work with the updated macro's.

 

[fumei]

Good advice.

Gerry

 

[briansdell]

All these are great ideas and I would like to use the Link that rschaaf talks about however this is new area for me and I am not sure how to create the link or set it up.
Any more info on this would be a big help!

 

[fumei]

Have your global.dot file where ever you want to store it. Presumably a network drive. Go that folder and make a shortcut for that file, in the normal manner you make shortcuts. There are of course a few ways, but I just right click the file and Create shortcut.

Now copy that shortcut to the user Program Files/....Office/Startup.

What this does is make a LINK to the global template. You can keep ONE master file of the global. The users just link to it.

Gerry

 

[rschaaf]

That's right!

Just make sure that the global.dot is stored on a (network) drive that all users have access to, otherwise of course the link doesn't work...

good luck, Robert

 

[briansdell]

This is working great just one problem however when my laptop users are out of the office the link does not work as they don't have a network connection.

This represents a small group of people so I will use the xcopy to place the global.dot file on those machines. And links for everyone else.

Everyone you have been a big help, we are back on track and anytime the users are happy my day is much better. Thanks again

Brian

 

[fumei]

Brian, if this was helpful, you may want to give it a star so others may notice it, and possibly find it helpful as well.

Gerry