I hadn't thought about the scenario you describe, but I think it is accurate
and agree with your suggestion. What we've actually requested for a future
version of Word that would be even more helpful would be a sort of Undo list
for the prompt to save Normal.dot, that is, a list of the changes that will
be saved if you say yes. When I leave Word running all day, I often forget
whether I've actually made changes I want to keep or not (a lot of times
I'll add a toolbar button and then remove it again while testing something
to answer a user's question--no net change, but Word doesn't treat it that
way). Not to mention the bug that makes Word keep prompting you to save
Normal.dot for days after the time changes in the fall and spring; it will
not quit until you finally give in!
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site:
http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
"CyberTaz" wrote in message ...
Hi Graham-
Thanks for taking the time to clarify! I appreciate your prompt and
thorough
response.
I understand and agree with the point you make re exercising 'control'
over
saving changes to normal.dot, especially for intermediate to advanced
users.
I believe that is the 'missing link' I wasn't picking up on earlier in the
thread.
As a sidebar to the discussion: I have found that since the prompt to save
appears as the change is being made even when the option is set as you
suggest, it leads to confusion for less experienced users. They have
already
said Yes to saving _that_ change, and when they Exit and are prompted
again
they are afraid to say Yes for fear of saving something else by accident.
It
isn't clear that the prompt pertains to their default font change. Ergo,
they say No at the final prompt and their intended change is discarded, as
you point out.
IMHO it would be helpful if there were separate prompts generated for
changes that are to be saved in normal.dot triggered by how the prompt in
the Save Options is set. If unchecked, "Changes will be saved..." & if
checked, "Changes will be in effect for session only, permanent change
must
be saved on Exit...". Does this seem reasonable?
Best Regards |:)
On 3/26/05 12:20 PM, in article ,
"Graham Mayor" wrote:
Now we are all getting confused 
There was nothing wrong with your original response, but for the
necessity
to ensure that the changes to the default are actually saved in
normal.dot.
The circumstances whereby normal.dot changes are saved are twofold:
1. If tools options prompt to save normal.dot is *unchecked* then
normal.dot is saved automatically on exit. Most people do not have this
option set, because it is a good plan to decide for yourself whether to
allow such changes.
2. If the above option is *checked* then changes are not automatically
saved, but may be saved at the prompt to save.
I know of no other circumstances, not caused by a fault condition, that
would cause changes to normal.dot to be saved automatically.
If the changes are not saved to normal.dot then they are active only for
the
current session. However, it is possible to set Word to be the e-mail
editor
of Outlook and closing Word does not necessaily close it completely if
it is
the Outlook editor *and* has been used to edit a message from Outlook
*and*
Outlook remains open. You can see this if you press CTRL+ALT+DEL and
check
the running processes, for winword.exe would still be list.
Under such circumstances you could close Word directly and you would get
no
prompt to save normal.dot and you could re-open Word and the default
would
still be as you had set it, because Outlook is holding normal.dot open
throughout. You would thus only get a prompt to save normal.dot if you
closed *both* Word *and* Outlook. If you then reject the option to save
normal.dot the original setting is reverted to.
--