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Word 2013 insists on asking if I want to save the document template, or in the case of a custom template, save that named template. I have followed the recommendations for turning this "feature" off, but it persists. I have unchecked the box labeled "Prompt Before Saving Normal Template**"** in both the normal and the custom templates. No change. It still prompts me to save. I worry that there is something wrong with my installation (Word also hangs if I open a folder and double-click on a document to open it. I have learned that I can right-click and select "Restore" to get the document to open, but this seems to suggest a problem with the program or the installation).
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Thank you. It has solved the problem.
I agree with you re the template changes - why on earth would you want to change a template unless you are actively editing it.
Thank you. It has solved the problem.
I agree with you re the template changes - why on earth would you want to change a template unless you are actively editing it.
The template you get the warning about is almost always the normal template. It stores your default styles and is the default storage location for recorded macros and keyboard shortcuts. It may hold AutoText or other building blocks. You trying to do any of those may make changes to the normal template. So can malicious or poorly-written code; thus the warning.
By the way, turning off the prompt to save changes simply saves them without asking you. Just as turning off a smoke alarm does nothing about the faulty wiring causing the smoke, turning off the prompt to save changes does not deal with what is trying to change your normal template.
Hi folks. I was following this thread because I have the same problem. Word throws up a window asking if I want to save the template, every time I save any document that I generated using one of my personal document templates. It is not that it wants to save normal.dot. That is a different issue. It wants to save my finished documents over the templates that I have made and saved as templates, such as templates I made and use for various kinds of reports, or a business letter, or a response to certain kinds of inquires we get in my business.
I would not have made templates if I wanted the actual text of each finished document saved into it.
Folks experiencing this problem, who do a lot of writing, know it is annoying as ****.
Unfortunately, I did not benefit from the fixes suggested. I could not find any ad-ins that I know of or that i could find using any of the suggestions offered.
BUT, while i did not find a solution to the problem, I did find a way to work around it.
Open whatever template you are planning to use, and before you write a word or hit a space bar or touch anything on the keyboard, save it with the name you are ultimately going to use. then when you write in it and save it again, it will NOT prompt to save the template.
In other words, I open a new document using my template that I named Business Letterhead.dot. Before I write anything, I save it as "Letter to Tony.doc" it will not ask to save the template if i have not written in it yet. Then when i am halfway through the letter, three quarters through, after i have revised it a little, and when I am finally finished, i can save it. as many times as I want, and it will not prompt to save the template.
I think i got this nailed!
The option to "Prompt before saving Normal template" applies specifically to that template; you can't prevent Word from prompting you when changes have been made to a custom template.
Think of the prompt as a warning that something has changed—something that you may or may not want to keep (in other words, don't turn it off).
You should expect to be prompted if you are saving Building Blocks, key assignments, styles, or macros to a template. If you are not doing any of that, you should troubleshoot for (poorly designed) add-ins. In the Knowledge Base article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541/en-us, take a look at the sections that refer to add-ins.
You should never turn off the option to "Prompt before saving Normal template." This is like taking the battery out of your smoke detector because the alarm keeps going off. Turning off the prompt doesn't prevent the template from being saved; it just allows Word to save it without asking for permission.
That said, it is not normal to be prompted to save a template that hasn't changed, and the fact that you're getting the prompt even with the option disabled is an indication that there is something wrong. There are an old KB article and an old assistance article that address the problem with the Normal template (there is a current version at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918064), and, although asking about every template is a somewhat different (and much more annoying) problem, the advice in these articles is about the best you will find. Over the course of many years and many Word versions, the reported solution has almost invariably turned out to be finding and disabling an add-in of some kind that is causing the problem.