How do I delete a created document that reappears on the blank pag

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Guest

A former staff person created a letter to her son on the blank page,
document1. We cannot get rid of this letter and recover the original blank
page on opening the program or opening another blank page. I even removed the
software and reinstalled several weeks later and it came back with the letter
on opening the program. According to her there was no password used on the
letter.
 
That blank page that opens as Document1 is your Normal template. All you
need to do is find the file called "Normal.dot" and delete it.
 
No! Not delete! Rename at most.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Hi, Suzanne,
I'm curious why you feel so strongly about this. I always thought that
deleting the Normal.dot template was a fairly innocuous thing to do, since
Word will automatically create a new Normal.dot next time you start. I must
have been wrong, it seems.
Fred
 
Normal.dot by default stores all your user customizations (macros, AutoText
entries, formatted AutoCorrect entries, toolbar and menu customizations,
style modifications, etc.). If you had customized Word as heavily as I have,
you would be extremely fearful of losing Normal.dot (and careful to keep it
backed up). If you just rename it, you can retrieve at least some of those
customizations through the Organizer. And if turns out that Normal.dot was
not the problem after all, you can delete the new one and revert to the old
one.

Are you saying that you have never added or deleted a toolbar button,
created an AutoText entry, modified a style and saved these changes to
Normal.dot? If so, you're either a very sophisticated user who stores
everything in document templates and global add-ins, or you have barely
scratched the surface of Word's possibilities.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Yes, I've done all the things you listed, but the original poster seemed to
be a fairly unsophisticated user (she didn't appear to know what Normal.dot
was). I didn't think I would hurt her too much by having her delete it.

Fred
 
The "unsophisticated user" who doesn't know what Normal.dot is is precisely
the one most likely to be dismayed when all her customizations are lost. If
you don't know that these customizations are saved in Normal.dot, then you
are less likely to be chary of deleting it, especially if someone
authoritative-sounding tells you to.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
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