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#1
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Network Normal.dot Issues
I am responsible for IT (and word processing) in a small
office of about 20 users. I am the only IT Operator in the office and new to professional IT. My issue is this: All 20 computer users in this office are accessing the same normal.dot file on a network drive. The Windows platforms and Office versions on the computers are various, from Windows98 to WindowsXP, and from Office97 to Office2003. I have read a Microsoft article that says normal.dot should not be used by multiple users. The network administrators disagree with this. I am asking about this issue in an attempt to understand some odd, glitchy issues we have been having with Word from time to time. Any advice or comments on the advisability of network use of normal.dot would be appreciated. Cheers MarieC |
#2
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You definitely should not be sharing Normal.dot between any users, and to
share it between different Office versions is complete madness! Normal.dot does a number of different things. A couple that might be significant he Normal.dot acts as a repository for various user settings and customizations. A distinct copy of Normal needs to be available to each user's Word application so these changes can be recorded during work, and saved on exit. (Note that this also means that you should not make Normal.dot read-only, nor access it across a network which might lose connection.) Normal.dot acts as the model for default blank documents - each new document is effectively a copy of the 'document' part of the template (styles, page layout, various properties and options). Although Word documents can to some extent be shared between versions from 97 onwards, there are new and changed features in each version, and various compatibility issues. If you have a Normal.dot that relates to an older version, you may be missing some features in new blank documents (I would guess, for instance, that built-in Table styles might not appear). If you have one that relates to a newer version, you may get a blank document that has already had to ignore or convert some file parameters in order to be editable. There are obviously some real issues of compatibility, control and consistency that need to addressed in your situation. You might need to provide 'starter' Normal.dots for each version for instance, or use macros to ensure certain options are set. But you need to leave each user's 'User Templates Folder' (which will be the location of Normal.dot) on their own machine. If you want to share document templates, you can set a 'Workgroup Templates Folder' location to a network location, or push out templates from a central location with a log-in script, for instance. Hope this is some help to your cause :-) . -- Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org "MarieC" wrote in message ... I am responsible for IT (and word processing) in a small office of about 20 users. I am the only IT Operator in the office and new to professional IT. My issue is this: All 20 computer users in this office are accessing the same normal.dot file on a network drive. The Windows platforms and Office versions on the computers are various, from Windows98 to WindowsXP, and from Office97 to Office2003. I have read a Microsoft article that says normal.dot should not be used by multiple users. The network administrators disagree with this. I am asking about this issue in an attempt to understand some odd, glitchy issues we have been having with Word from time to time. Any advice or comments on the advisability of network use of normal.dot would be appreciated. Cheers MarieC |
#3
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To add to what Margaret has said, you might point your network
administrators to the KB article “You cannot share the Normal.dot file among multiple users in Word” at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811468. Perhaps this is the article you have already seen. If they won't take advice from you or us, they might heed the "official word" from Microsoft. -- 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. "Margaret Aldis" wrote in message ... You definitely should not be sharing Normal.dot between any users, and to share it between different Office versions is complete madness! Normal.dot does a number of different things. A couple that might be significant he Normal.dot acts as a repository for various user settings and customizations. A distinct copy of Normal needs to be available to each user's Word application so these changes can be recorded during work, and saved on exit. (Note that this also means that you should not make Normal.dot read-only, nor access it across a network which might lose connection.) Normal.dot acts as the model for default blank documents - each new document is effectively a copy of the 'document' part of the template (styles, page layout, various properties and options). Although Word documents can to some extent be shared between versions from 97 onwards, there are new and changed features in each version, and various compatibility issues. If you have a Normal.dot that relates to an older version, you may be missing some features in new blank documents (I would guess, for instance, that built-in Table styles might not appear). If you have one that relates to a newer version, you may get a blank document that has already had to ignore or convert some file parameters in order to be editable. There are obviously some real issues of compatibility, control and consistency that need to addressed in your situation. You might need to provide 'starter' Normal.dots for each version for instance, or use macros to ensure certain options are set. But you need to leave each user's 'User Templates Folder' (which will be the location of Normal.dot) on their own machine. If you want to share document templates, you can set a 'Workgroup Templates Folder' location to a network location, or push out templates from a central location with a log-in script, for instance. Hope this is some help to your cause :-) . -- Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org "MarieC" wrote in message ... I am responsible for IT (and word processing) in a small office of about 20 users. I am the only IT Operator in the office and new to professional IT. My issue is this: All 20 computer users in this office are accessing the same normal.dot file on a network drive. The Windows platforms and Office versions on the computers are various, from Windows98 to WindowsXP, and from Office97 to Office2003. I have read a Microsoft article that says normal.dot should not be used by multiple users. The network administrators disagree with this. I am asking about this issue in an attempt to understand some odd, glitchy issues we have been having with Word from time to time. Any advice or comments on the advisability of network use of normal.dot would be appreciated. Cheers MarieC |
#4
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Normal.dot should _not_ be shared. What can be shared or distributed is one
or more other global templates which can customize AutoText, macros, toolbars, and the interface in general. See http://addbalance.com/word/movetotemplate.htm for step-by-step instructions on moving / sharing / copying / backing-up customizations including AutoText, AutoCorrect, keyboard assignments, toolbars, macros, etc. Also, you should have a set of workgroup templates which can set formats and styles. For more on the different kinds of templates, tabs on the file new dialog, and locations of templates folders see http://addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm. These two approaches, combined, can do far more toward standardizing a work environment and maximizing your users' efficacy with Word than sharing normal.dot ever could, without the problems that come from attempting to share normal.dot. These are more work and require a greater knowledge of how to use Word, but are much more productive. -- Charles Kenyon Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome! --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn from my ignorance and your wisdom. "MarieC" wrote in message ... I am responsible for IT (and word processing) in a small office of about 20 users. I am the only IT Operator in the office and new to professional IT. My issue is this: All 20 computer users in this office are accessing the same normal.dot file on a network drive. The Windows platforms and Office versions on the computers are various, from Windows98 to WindowsXP, and from Office97 to Office2003. I have read a Microsoft article that says normal.dot should not be used by multiple users. The network administrators disagree with this. I am asking about this issue in an attempt to understand some odd, glitchy issues we have been having with Word from time to time. Any advice or comments on the advisability of network use of normal.dot would be appreciated. Cheers MarieC |
#5
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To Margaret, Suzanne and Charles
Thank you very much for your responses to my query. I will now try to remedy this situation. Cheers MarieC -----Original Message----- Normal.dot should _not_ be shared. What can be shared or distributed is one or more other global templates which can customize AutoText, macros, toolbars, and the interface in general. See http://addbalance.com/word/movetotemplate.htm for step- by-step instructions on moving / sharing / copying / backing-up customizations including AutoText, AutoCorrect, keyboard assignments, toolbars, macros, etc. Also, you should have a set of workgroup templates which can set formats and styles. For more on the different kinds of templates, tabs on the file new dialog, and locations of templates folders see http://addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm. These two approaches, combined, can do far more toward standardizing a work environment and maximizing your users' efficacy with Word than sharing normal.dot ever could, without the problems that come from attempting to share normal.dot. These are more work and require a greater knowledge of how to use Word, but are much more productive. -- Charles Kenyon Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome! --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------ --- This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn from my ignorance and your wisdom. "MarieC" wrote in message ... I am responsible for IT (and word processing) in a small office of about 20 users. I am the only IT Operator in the office and new to professional IT. My issue is this: All 20 computer users in this office are accessing the same normal.dot file on a network drive. The Windows platforms and Office versions on the computers are various, from Windows98 to WindowsXP, and from Office97 to Office2003. I have read a Microsoft article that says normal.dot should not be used by multiple users. The network administrators disagree with this. I am asking about this issue in an attempt to understand some odd, glitchy issues we have been having with Word from time to time. Any advice or comments on the advisability of network use of normal.dot would be appreciated. Cheers MarieC . |