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Graham Mayor
 
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Back to the drawing board


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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
The problem with using Save All is that I assume it saves all open
documents? Since I always keep Document1 open as a scratchpad and
don't want to save it, this would cause problems for me.


"Graham Mayor" wrote in message
...
In the meantime, you might force a save of normal.dot (from
SHIFT+File+Save all or from the save button in the vba editor) when
you make changes you want to keep and when quitting Word always
answer 'no' to the prompt

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org





Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
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!


"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.

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