Blank Screen in Word (Normal.dotm)

When you start Word, it may seem like a blank screen appears. In reality, this isn’t a truly blank screen, but the default template of Word. How can you best use this template?

Normal.dotm

The blank screen in Word isn’t truly blank. The start screen has a white background, a specific font, and the page margins are already set. Word retrieves all this from the template called Normal.dotm.

Don’t edit directly

As a rule, users should not edit the Normal.dotm file directly. The reason is that if Word crashes and restarts, it will automatically create a new Normal.dotm file, causing you to lose any changes made to the original one.

Copying Normal.dotm

Larger companies may use software that automatically copies the company’s standard template into Normal.dotm at each launch. At smaller companies, it’s recommended to keep a backup copy so that default settings can be restored for all users if needed.

Normal.dotm per user

Each user has their own Normal.dotm file. This is another reason not to apply general changes to this template. Word uses the folder defined for “User Templates” to find the Normal.dotm file at startup.

If this file does not exist, Word will automatically create one.

Word error messages

NOTE: The user templates folder must be unique for each user. Otherwise, you may receive error messages in Word such as:

• Cannot save data because Normal.dotm is already in use