Hi Jackie,
I'm afraid your "renaming method" is exactly what's getting you into hot
water.
First, to make something clearer: There can be *many* global templates at
the same time -- as many as you want to store in the Startup folder, plus
any you load by using the Add button in the Tools > Templates & Add-Ins
dialog. There's no such thing as "the" global template.
However, Normal.dot is special. It serves as both a regular template --
whenever you click File > New and ask for a "Blank Document" or click the
New Document toolbar button -- and as an always-present global template that
supplies styles, macros, autotext, toolbars, and shortcuts. You can't run
Word without a Normal.dot; if there isn't one, Word will create a new one
with the factory defaults.
Just as Joyce Kilmer wrote "only God can make a tree", only Word can make a
genuine Normal.dot. If you create any other template and rename it as
Normal.dot, you're getting an inferior imposter. It will be missing the
default set of autotext entries, at the very least. If you stored macros
etc. in the real Normal.dot, they *will* disappear when you substitute the
other template by renaming. Please kill off that "renaming method" before
you drive yourself bonkers!
Part of your problem is in overdoing the customization of your Normal.dot.
If you want a different font or style formatting, make a separate ordinary
template and base some of your documents on it. If you want macros or
toolbars that are available in all documents, save them in a global template
*other than* Normal.dot. Many expert users will, as far as possible, never
change anything in their Normal.dot -- *all* customizations are placed in
other templates.
To make sure you don't lose things that are stored in templates, start doing
regular backups. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/FilesToBackup.htm for
advice.
