Being "the guy who knows computers", my dad asked me to troubleshoot his
Word 97 for him. I never use Word, so I've had trouble helping him.

Somehow, Word always opens files - new ones (CTRL-N) or old files saved
on disk - in a mode (Layout mode I think) which displays a sidebar
containing headlines and such on the left side of the screen. It never
"used to do this" - it just "suddenly started".

Choosing "Normal mode" from the "View" menu cures this temporarily, but
when a new document is opened - the sidebar is there again. Any way to
stay in normal mode *permanently*?

Searching the Web and Usenet, some of the solutions to similar problems
involved creating macros or messing around with template files, but
there has to be a simpler way. (My dad could never misconfigure an
autostart macro to open documents in Layout mode...)

Isn't there some option, a checkbox or something, hidden somewhere,
saying "Default editing mode: Normal mode"?

Any help greatly appreciated!

/Chris