Fixing Persistent Template Corruption

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 5, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Brad was having problems with one of his Word templates. The template, after being used once or twice, would routinely get "corrupted." This corruption would manifest itself through the appearance of improper AutoCorrect entries in his document.

The problem in this case may not be the AutoCorrect entries, but the actual template itself. Templates—particularly those with lots of elements in them—can easily become very complex and therefore easy to corrupt.

It is impossible to determine the exact cause of a problem without some amount of trial and error. In this case, try the following:

If you are using Word 2003, open the template file directly using Open and Repair. (Select the template file in the Option dialog box, then click the down-arrow at the right side of the Open button.) This will check the file to see if Word can locate and fix any corruption.
Use the Organizer to copy styles, macros, and other elements from the existing template to a new template file. This will help to clear up some problems that may exist in the actual structural framework of the existing template file.
Reduce the complexity of the template by splitting it into several template files. Place macros in one, styles in another, etc. Attach them to your document as global templates; this allows you to attach more than one each document.
Protect your template files so they are "read only." This should be done at a Windows level, outside of Word. This will protect the templates so that nothing can be written to them. (Corruption most often happens through writing to a file.)

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (150) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Using the Style Area

The style area is an esoteric feature of Word that allows you to easily see the styles applied to the paragraphs in your ...

Discover More

Filling a Range of Cells with Values

When writing a macro, you may want to fill a range of cells with different values. The easiest way to do this is to use ...

Discover More

Picking a Group of Cells

Excel makes it easy to select a group of contiguous cells. However, it also makes it easy to select non-contiguous groups ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (menu)

Getting Rid of Persistent Templates

Word uses an open interface that allows add-ons and other programs to expand the way that Word works. Sometimes remnants ...

Discover More

Managing Corporate Templates

Templates are used to store styles and lots of other customizations that affect how you use Word. On a single-user ...

Discover More

How Word Treats Normal.dot

Templates are at the core of how Word creates and formats documents. From the earliest days of Word, the most basic of ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 2 + 2?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.