The usual reason for this is that you have saved a document as Normal.dot.
See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/...ocNotBlank.htm

--
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.

"Geraldine" wrote in message
...
In MS Word 2003, the autotext function in the header/footer toolbar is
greyed
out and therefore doesn't work. I cannot figure out any way to make it
work -
any suggestions gratefully received.