upgrade Word toolbars & settings?

[Guest]

My employer is replacing our computers, which have MS Office 2000, with new
ones that have MS Office 2003. I have my MS Word pretty tweaked, with custom
toolbars, macros, various settings, etc., and hate the idea of having to
start all over. Is normal.dot cross-compatible? I.e., can I just delete
(OK, rename it, for safety) the new normal.dot in Word 2003, and replace it
with the one from Word 2000? If not, is there any way to carry over to the
new computer my old settings?

I assume I could copy my macros, and paste them into the Microsoft Visual
Basic for the macros on the new version. Anyone know how cross-compatible
the macros are, from one version of Word to the next?

Similar workarounds for toolbars, or custom icons on them, or other settings?

Bonus question -- why is it so hard to find an answer to this question?
(You lose points for answering that the author is obviously poor at word
searches since the answer can easily be found at .... Providing the URL for
the answer, without insulting the author, is perfectly acceptable.)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/FilesToBackup.htm

--
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.

 

[Guest]

Thanks -- lots of helpful information there. I was, or course, hoping for
something simpler, but hoping for something to be simple doesn't really do
much. I do get the impression, although didn't really see it expressed
directly, that I can do a lot just by copying my normal.dot into my new
computer. Sounds like some of my other files, like the dictionary file will
work. All the stuff in the registry is probably not going to be available --
I see they've disabled the profile wizard on my computer (presumably on all
computers in their system).

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Some people recommend the Save My Settings wizard (the one you're referring
to as disabled, perhaps), but I don't think it includes all the files
referenced in the article I cited. I don't get a new computer often, and
when I do I usually take a minimalist approach, copying toolbars and stuff
from an existing Normal.dot, but starting from scratch on the custom
dictionary, AutoCorrect file, etc., since much of what is in them is
obsolete, anyway.

--
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.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

I would recommend moving things to a separate global template. Possibly you
could simply rename normal.dot and put it in your Word Startup folder. If
you did that you would want to delete the standard AutoText from your
global. Not all customizations are stored in normal.dot, though. See
http://addbalance.com/word/movetotemplate.htm for step-by-step instructions
on moving / sharing / copying / backing-up customizations including
AutoText, AutoCorrect, keyboard assignments, toolbars, macros, etc.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide




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