Hello once again to my fellow techies, I have a question for you regarding margin settings when you first open Word. I have not found where I can reset them to always have a new document open with 1" margins on all four sides. my left and right always default to 1.25" for both. I sometimes forget and get all happy about how much I just wrote, only to remember to resize it and lose a page or so of length. hey, I'm an adult student, who doesn't have time for nonsense, give me a break. ;) anyway, if anyone has a way of setting margins to default to 1" upon opening a new doc, I'd sure appreciate you filling me in on how. as always, thanks! :) Chuck

Setup Word the way you like it and then saveas normal.dot, this should replace the default with your version. M

well done ... except normal.dot will do u no good in 'my documents' ... you must save it in c:\document and settings\USER\application data\microsoft\templates ... replacing the existing file (back it up first) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

sounds like it should work just fine, but I just tried to do a "save as" from within word, naming it "normal.dot", selecting .dot format from the pulldown, and it gives me a wonderful little msg box: "word cannot give a document the same name as an open document"... so, that being the case, I closed word after saving a doc setup with 1" margins by a diff name, closed word, opened windows explorer, renamed the newest doc normal.dot, tried to copy it over the default normal.dot, but still to no avail. hmm. Is there a plan B? thanks, Chuck

sry for the late reply, chuck ... 'no avail' as in the file was copied and still the old margins, or file could not be copied due to file protection? ... if necessary try it in safe mode. or search for any normal.dot and see if it's in a different location. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

sorry for the lack of clarification on my part. file did not, and will not copy over the original normal.dot. I rebooted and went into explorer without touching word and unchecked the "Read Only" box under properties of the original normal.dot in D&S\Chuck\App Data\MS\ Templates. I get an "Error Copying File or Folder" popup, which reads: "Cannot copy Normal: The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open." but let me tell you how I just fixed it: I just remembered that my Outlook 2003 is setup to use Word as its editor, so hence, there is always a copy of normal.dot open on startup. (duh on my part - close Outlook, copy over top of the original normal.dot = done deal). :) gracious. and I call my self a support technician. oy. I sincerely thank you for your help, and for letting me know about normal.dot to begin with. is it the same for other MS office prog's? do each of them have their own "normal.dot" for settings? I would think they must. thanks again, Chuck

sorry for the lack of clarification on my part. file did not, and will not copy over the original normal.dot. I rebooted and went into explorer without touching word and unchecked the "Read Only" box under properties of the original normal.dot in D&S\Chuck\App Data\MS\ Templates. I get an "Error Copying File or Folder" popup, which reads: "Cannot copy Normal: The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with a user-mapped section open." but let me tell you how I just fixed it: I just remembered that my Outlook 2003 is setup to use Word as its editor, so hence, there is always a copy of normal.dot open on startup. (duh on my part - close Outlook, copy over top of the original normal.dot = done deal). :) gracious. and I call my self a support technician. oy. I sincerely thank you for your help, and for letting me know about normal.dot to begin with. is it the same for other MS office prog's? do each of them have their own "normal.dot" for settings? I would think they must. thanks again, Chuck