Member Avatar for AlpineKid

Opened Word and the cursor is at the top & not were is should be. Tried to reset by going to Page Layout, Margins and setting to 2" on all sides. This will not work. Closed Word.

Did a HD search for Normal.dotm. Double clicked on this and same thing showed up. Renamed to 1Normal.dotm and redid document the way is should be and saved. Opened Word again, samething.

When I did search and found Normal.dotm the icon has a yellow what looks like a sheet of paper with a ! on it.

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The fact that the problem appears only in the Dennis account (while Admin and Terry work normally, as noted) strongly points to a per-user setting or startup item rather than a global Office install or a single Normal.dotm file. Several good template-focused suggestions were tried earlier (thanks to and ), so the next checks should focus on user-level startup files, add-ins, the default printer and a clean Word profile.

Quick tests (do these first):

  • Start Word in Safe Mode to see whether startup templates or add-ins are causing the layout change:
    winword /safe
  • If layout is normal in Safe Mode, disable all COM Add-ins and Word Add-ins (File > Options > Add-Ins, then Manage -> Go) and retest.
  • Check the Windows account's default printer. Word uses the active printer driver to compute page layout — a missing or odd virtual printer can move margins and the insertion point.

Deeper checks:

  • Inspect per-user and program-level Word startup folders for hidden templates/add-ins (example paths):
    %appdata%\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
%appdata%\Microsoft\Templates
%programfiles%\Microsoft Office\OfficeXX\STARTUP

    Temporarily move any .dotm/.dotx/.dot files out of those folders and restart Word. Also open the Templates and Add‑Ins dialog (Developer tab -> Document Template or Tools -> Templates and Add‑Ins) and make sure "Automatically update document styles" is unchecked.

If the issue persists:

  • Test in a fresh Windows user account to confirm it is user-profile specific.
  • Run Repair on Office from Programs and Features.
  • As a last resort (and only after exporting the registry), reset the Word user registry key for the affected account (HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Word) so Word rebuilds per-user settings.

Note: back up any Normal.dotm and exported registry keys before making changes. The suggestions above pick up where the thread left off and target the per-user items that template swaps alone will not fix.

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All 11 Replies

Member Avatar for cwarn23

Opened Word and the cursor is at the top & not were is should be. Tried to reset by going to Page Layout, Margins and setting to 2" on all sides. This will not work. Closed Word.

Did a HD search for Normal.dotm. Double clicked on this and same thing showed up. Renamed to 1Normal.dotm and redid document the way is should be and saved. Opened Word again, samething.

When I did search and found Normal.dotm the icon has a yellow what looks like a sheet of paper with a ! on it.

The file extension is incorrect. Try renaming the file to one of the following names:

Normal.doc
Normal.docx
Member Avatar for AlpineKid

Sorry cwarn23 but that did not work.
Did a Google search for word document with exclamation mark.
Clicked not one and was sent to > http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.word.docmanagement/browse_thread/thread/dcf96fc6f5d045c3
One of the links sends me here > http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm
Between the two places I figured out that Word has crashed.
Did what the page showed but it did not work.

Any other ideas??

Member Avatar for caperjack

google shows a .dotm as a word doc with a embedded macro .this may help ,not positive though .

Member Avatar for cwarn23

Perhaps you should open it and save it as a .docx format. Also as caperjack pointed out only Word 2007 and later may open this format.

Member Avatar for AlpineKid

google shows a .dotm as a word doc with a embedded macro .this may help ,not positive though .

I agree 100%.
But now how do I delete the embedded macro and get Normal.dotm the way I want it. I have tried to delete Normal.dotm, open another document the works right. Delete the info in the file & make sure format is correct. Then save as default document. Open Word and the cursor is still in the wrong place which is at top of page and margin format will not change to 1" from top.

Member Avatar for AlpineKid

Perhaps you should open it and save it as a .docx format. Also as caperjack pointed out only Word 2007 and later may open this format.

As I stated in later post tried that. I have tried to take a Normal.dotm from my other computer and copy it to this computer. Open Word and the cursor is still at top of page where it does not belong. This means that there must be some other problem. Maybe another file being opened. I do not know because I am not a programmer. If there is another file, where is it??
This might have been a Word 2007 problem at the time but I have it now.

Member Avatar for caperjack

what i don't understand is why Word opens to normal.dotm,when you click on the word icon it should open to a new document called document1,and the cursor would be at the top left,about a inch from side and top , and when you hit save as, it will show default name of doc1.dotx.

who created the normal.dotm file you are trying to work with

Member Avatar for AlpineKid

what i don't understand is why Word opens to normal.dotm,when you click on the word icon it should open to a new document called document1,and the cursor would be at the top left,about a inch from side and top , and when you hit save as, it will show default name of doc1.dotx.

who created the normal.dotm file you are trying to work with

I do not know. After I installed Office things worked just fine. Did not change Normal.dotm that I know of. One day I opened Word and have been having this problem since. And yes Word opens with Document_1 file name.
I have this computer set up w/ three users, Admin, Terry & Dennis. When I go into Admin & open Word, the document is just fine. Same in Terry also. Dennis is the only place I am having a problem.
Had a friend send me his Normal.dotm and that would not work eather. When I looked @ email I saw the icon with a ! in yellow scroll.
I am thinking I am going to have to uninstall Office, defrag HD & reinstall.
What does your icon look like for Normal.dotm?

Member Avatar for caperjack

ok i found it also read a bit about the file and its purpose.
found mine in this location .the icon has the ! ,but when i click on it opens word ,and all is ok .
C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates
also a normalold.dotm ,click on it and it opens word ok also .


i read if you delete the file ,office will recreate it next time you open Word,you just loose any changes you made to word defaults

Edited by caperjack because: n/a
Member Avatar for raone32

Did a HD search for Normal.dotm. Double clicked on this and same thing showed up. Renamed to 1Normal.dotm and redid document the way is should be and saved. Opened Word again, samething.

Edited by Narue because: Snipped fake signature
Member Avatar for AlpineKid

The file extension is incorrect. Try renaming the file to one of the following names:

Normal.doc
Normal.docx

I just did another search of my HD for norm*.do* and found Normal.dotm in the \Microsoft\Templates file. That means that Normal.docx in not a template file and it would not open when Word opened.

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