Troubleshoot templates and letters

If you have modified templates that came with an earlier version of Microsoft Word, you can continue to use them, but you should also keep the newer version of the templates on your hard drive. The Microsoft Office Word 2003 wizards are designed to work with the Office Word 2003 templates.

If you added your own toolbars, macros, styles, or AutoText entries to templates that came with earlier versions of Word, you can copy these items to Office Word 2003 templates. Rename your former templates, install the new templates, and then use the Organizer to copy these items to the new templates.

Macros in templates from earlier versions of Word will work in Office Word 2003. However, if you are using a version of Word that is earlier than Word 97 and you open a template and then save it in Office Word 2003 format, you will not be able to use it in previous versions of Word without converting it.

This might occur for either of the following reasons:

• You moved or copied a document to a different computer or file server location, and now Microsoft Word can't find the template that contains the missing items. Macros, AutoText entries, and customized toolbars, menus, and shortcut keys that you can use in a Word document can be stored in the template attached to the document or in the Normal template. When you move or copy a document to another location, copy the items you need to use — except for AutoText entries, which can be stored in the template only — to the document by using the Organizer. Or copy the items to the attached template, and then distribute the template with the document. The template should be placed in the folder that each user has specified as the User templates or Workgroup templates location (Tools menu, Options command, File Locations tab).
• The missing items might be stored in a template that's no longer attached to the active document. Or they might be stored in a template that was previously loaded as a global template.

• You may have inadvertently opened or created a template file. You cannot change the file type of a template. To save your work as a Microsoft Word document instead of a template, save the template, and then create a new document:
  1. On the File menu, click New, and then click the template you want to base the new document on.
  2. Under Create New, click Document, and then click OK.
  3. Copy all of your work from the template to the new document.
  4. Save the new document, making sure that you click Word Document in the Save as type box.

  If the file you are saving is a document, not a template, the problem could be the Concept Virus, a macro virus that prevents you from saving a file as any file type other than Document Template.

Field codes are displayed, which prevents the MACROBUTTON field from working properly. To show or hide field codes for a specific field, click the field code or the field results, and then press SHIFT+F9. To show or hide field codes for all fields in the document, press ALT+F9.

If you attempt to copy styles, macros, or other items to a template that's protected in some manner, you might not be allowed to save changes to the template, or the Copy button might be unavailable in the Organizer dialog box. This might occur if:

• The template is protected for changes, comments, or form fields.
• The template is protected with a password that has been assigned on the Security tab (Tools menu, Options command).
• The file attributes are set to read-only.
• The file is on a file server you don't have access to.

To save changes to the template, the protection must be removed from the template, or you must acquire access permission.

Changing the template that's attached to a document — either by modifying the currently attached template or by attaching a different template — has the following effects:

• Macros, AutoText entries, and custom toolbar and command settings in a modified template are available for use in any document based on the template, including existing documents. If you attach a different template to a document, items stored in the newly attached template are then available to the document.
• If you add or modify styles in a template, styles in an existing document based on that template are not immediately updated to match the template styles.
• To have Microsoft Word update styles in an existing document to match the styles in its attached template, first open the document. On the Tools menu, click Templates and Add-Ins, and then select the Automatically update document styles check box. If the document text is formatted with styles that have the same names as styles in the attached template, Word updates the text formatting to match the template's style formats.
• If you change the boilerplate text and graphics in a template or change document formats — for example, page margins and page size, headers and footers, or the number of columns per page — these changes affect only new documents that you subsequently base on the template. Existing documents based on the template aren't affected.

If some items — such as templates, wizards, or custom commands — do not function the way you expect, you may be running a Microsoft Office program with the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) shared feature disabled. Many features in Office are created in VBA or depend on VBA support to function correctly. If you choose not to install the VBA feature, these dependent applications and features will be disabled or not installed.

For additional information about the effects of disabling VBA, see the Microsoft Office Resource Kit Web site.

To re-enable VBA, follow these steps:

1. Run the Office Setup program again.

   How?

   1. Quit all programs.
   2. Click Start, Click Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then do one of the following:
      • If you installed Word as part of Office, click Microsoft Office 2003 in the Currently installed programs box, and then click the Change button.
      • If you installed Word individually, click Microsoft Office Word 2003 in the Currently installed programs box, and then click the Change button.
2. On the Maintenance Mode Options screen, click Add or Remove Features, and then click Next.
3. On the Custom Setup screen, select the Choose advanced customization of applications check box, and then click Next.
4. On the Advanced Customization screen, click the expand indicator next to Office Shared Features.
5. Click the arrow next to Visual Basic for Applications, and then click Run from My Computer.

If someone else set up your Office installation for you, contact your system administrator or Information Technology (IT) professional to see whether you are running Office with VBA disabled.

You may have cleared the Trust all installed add-ins and templates check box. Depending on your macro security setting, when you open a macro, you will receive a warning, and the macro may be disabled for installed templates and add-ins (including wizards).

Note  All templates, add-ins, and macros shipped with Microsoft Office 2003 are digitally signed by Microsoft. Once you add Microsoft to your list of trusted sources for one of these installed files, all subsequent interaction with these files will not generate messages.

Save your custom templates in the Templates folder. Template files that you save in the Templates folder appear in the Templates dialog box, which you display by clicking New on the File menu and then clicking On my computer in the New Document task pane.

You can typically find the Templates folder in the following location, unless you have changed this setting on the File Locations tab (Options command, Tools menu):

Root\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\

where Root is a server location or a directory on a drive from which all other folders branch (for example, C:\), and username is your Microsoft Windows user account.

Templates in the Templates folder appear on the General tab; templates in subfolders of the Templates folder appear on tabs with the same names as the subfolders. For example, if you create a subfolder under the Templates folder called Reports, a Reports tab will appear in the Templates dialog box.

• Your computer is connected to the Internet.
• The Show content and links from Microsoft Office Online check box is selected in the Service Options dialog box (on the Tools menu, click the General tab, click Service Options, and then under Category, click Online Content).

When you use the Letter Wizard, many of the names and other items you enter are stored as AutoText entries so that later you can easily use them. To keep the list from becoming too long, a maximum of 50 entries is stored for each letter item.

Security  Because AutoText entries are stored in files, do not use AutoText entries to store sensitive data in files that you distribute.

If you anchor a drawing object — such as an AutoShape — to a paragraph in your document that the Letter Wizard changes, Microsoft Word may delete the drawing object. For example, if you anchor an AutoShape to a paragraph that you have formatted with the Date style, and you change the Date line on the Letter Format tab in the Letter Wizard, Word removes the AutoShape.

To restore your drawing object, click Undo until the object reappears. Anchor the drawing object to a paragraph that is not a Letter Wizard element — such as the body of the letter — and then run the Letter Wizard again.

• The template is not stored in the correct location   For a template to be available through the Letter Wizard, you must store the template in the Templates folder.
• The template name does not contain "letter" or "ltr"   For the Letter Wizard to recognize a template as a letter template, the template file name must contain "letter" or "ltr" — for example, "Form letter.dot" or "Marketing.ltr.dot."

When you create a mail merge main document and then run the Letter Wizard, the Letter Wizard replaces some merge fields with the { AUTOTEXTLIST } field.

Replace the { AUTOTEXTLIST } field after closing the Letter Wizard

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the View tab.
2. Select the Field codes check box.
3. In the letter, delete the { AUTOTEXTLIST } field, and then reinsert your merge field by clicking Insert Merge Field on the Mail Merge toolbar.

If your letter template contains headers and footers, make sure you have checked the Include header and footer with page design check box on the Letter Format tab of the Letter Wizard.

When you set Microsoft Word to display field codes, you see the name of the field instead of the result. To hide field codes, press ALT+F9.