Modifying Normal.dotm (Mac)

Question

Somehow my Normal is now opening with track changes on. I want to revert to "off."

opening the template via the menus causes the application to crash.

Opening a blank document, making format changes, and saving it as a Normal.dotm leaves me with a much de-featured template (38KB as opposed to the original 160+KB)

I've never understood how to modify a highly customized Normal.dotm beyond making format changes in a document and adding these to the existing template (like styles etc); and have been hobbled by this problem for ages. (NB: I have 2 EndNote add-ons, which may be complicating things.)

At this point I just want to know how to turn off the track changes setting on new documents.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Actually, I managed to do this by turning off track changes, bringing up the Normal style, "modifying" it, and adding it to "template". I guess I am alright. Is there a better way, though?

Answer 2

Hi James,

Thanks for your sharing back. If so, then you have done in the correct way to turn off track changes and ensure other customization are in good to save the template for further use. Hope you don't mind that we will mark your first reply as the answer so that it can Ignite the minds of others who may face a similar situation to resolve and modify the start template.

Hope you a nice day and let me know if there have anything we can do for you.

Best Regards,

Mia

Answer 3

Thanks,. I know that this is possible, but because my Normal is so customized, I will never want to restore the default template. I would lose every functionality that I have built into it over several years.

Answer 4

Dear respected James,

Glad to hear you managed to resolve the situation and now create a new document in Word will not with Track Changes on.

For future use, if anything is saved into the Normal.dotm and you want to reset it to default, go to /Users/username/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates and rename the issue template so Word will generate a brand new one automatically.

For reference: How to restore default Normal template in WORD - Microsoft Community

Please let me know if there have anything else I can do for you or I made any misunderstanding of your scenario. I appreciate your time and effort on checking these above and thank you for your time and cooperation. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

Sincerely,

Mia | Microsoft Community Moderator