kimlife,
Thank you for visiting the Microsoft Answers community forum.
There are a couple of things that can cause this. One is a corrupted normal.dot template, one is a corrupted printer driver, and the other would be some sort of third part add in. So let's start witht he simplest to try and that is replacing the normal.dot template.
Click on Start, go to Search, and in the Search box type normal.dot. There should be a search option that you can check for 'search hidden files', make sure that is checked. If it does not find it, try searching for *.dot. It may be hard to find because it is a hidden file. You may have to go into folder options and be sure "show hidden files" is checked. Whenever you find normal.dot, rename it old.dot and restart your computer. Open Word and it will create a new normal.dot template, which is what Word uses as a default blank document.
If that does not work, read this article about a third party add in that can cause this issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906899
Let us know how that works out and if you need additional help.
Thank you,
Gloria
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
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