thanks for getting right back to me. The macros I'm trying to use are already
in "Normal" but just to make sure I opened the template and saved it in
word's startup then opened one of my text files and they were still not
there. Any other suggestions??

thanks
cb

"Jay Freedman" wrote:

cannonball wrote:
I use an extensive set of macros for a particular task. When I open an
existing plain text file the macros are gone. I usually go to
tools/macros/organize.. and transfer the four macro files to the new
document. That always seems to work, but if I close the file and
reopen it they are gone again. I do not want to save as a word
document because further processing requires a text only document.

There is no place in a plain-text file to store any macros -- that's part of
the definition of "plain-text". When you choose that file type in the Save
As dialog, Word throws away anything that isn't text.

Put your macros in a global template, that is, one stored in Word's Startup
folder (see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...latesStore.htm).
Then the macros will be available in all your documents, including
plain-text ones.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org