Customizing Word 2007 - Creating Your Own “Normal” Template 
by Nancy DeMarte, ndemarte@verizon.net 
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. 
If you want to create documents with new and colorful formats, Word 2007 offers some interesting options with the Quick Styles gallery, a new feature located on the Home tab. This gallery contains sixteen templates, each available in Live Preview and able to be selected with a click. Each style template includes certain fonts and font effects, such as color, size, bold or italic, and line spacing. The first two styles, Normal and No Spacing, apply to the body text in documents; the rest apply to parts of documents, such as headings or subheadings. The default style, or the one you get if you open a new document, is Normal (normal.dotm). In 2007 the normal template contains several variations from the Word 2003 normal template, some of which started to bother me the first time I typed with Word 2007. For one thing, it uses two new fonts, Calibri for the body text and Cambria for headings. At an 11 point size, these fonts seem too small for my older eyes. The space between lines in a paragraph (1.15) is a bit larger than single space, and the space after paragraphs at 10 points seems wastefully large. The margins in the new normal template are 1" on each side. I prefer smaller margins for most documents. This new Normal style is modern and gives a sleek, open look to a document, but it’s possible that many users moving from Word 2003 to Word 2007 are finding its quirks irritating. 
I decided to try to change the Normal Style in Word 2007 to be more like the one I was used to in 2003. I found several possible approaches to this task, but finally settled on a process which worked for me. Below are the steps I used to change Word 2007’s normal style to one that I preferred:
First I set myself a plan. I decided that I wanted to change only the font, the font size, the space between lines in a paragraph, the space allowed before and after paragraphs, and the margins. I thought it wise to alter only the basics, knowing I could always make changes manually for special documents or rework the normal template if I wasn’t happy with it. To change any of these things, I found I needed to work in a dialog box that had a Default button which would save my changes for use in future documents. I began by opening Word 2007. On the Home tab in the Font group I clicked the dialog box launcher, a tiny arrow in the lower right corner of that group. This opened a familiar dialog box from Word 2003 containing all sorts of font-related options. I changed the font to Times New Roman, which, along with Arial, was one of the standards for Word 2003. I set the font size to 12 points. I would have set it to 10 if I had chosen Arial. These are typical sizes for average documents. Then I clicked the Default button and selected Yes when asked if I wanted this change to affect all future documents. 
Then I clicked the dialog box launcher arrow in the Paragraph group and set the line spacing to Single Space and the Space before and Space after paragraphs to .6. Again, I clicked Default and answered Yes.

Next, I clicked the Page Layout Tab, and, in the Page Setup group, clicked the Margins button, which gave me a list of margin schemes, including diagrams of each. Even though I wanted the Narrow margin scheme, I knew just clicking it would not make it hold for future documents, so I clicked Custom Margins at the bottom of the list. Sure enough, up came a dialog box with a Default button. I made sure .5" replaced 1" in all four boxes, then clicked Default and Yes.
My last step was to go back to the Home tab and right click the Normal style icon, then Modify. In the Modify Style dialog box, I clicked the radio button next to “New documents based on this template.” This dialog box is a good place to see a preview of what your next document will look like and to confirm that the changes you’ve made are listed beneath the preview window. You might be puzzled by the “widow/orphan” item in the list, but don’t eliminate it unless you have a specific reason to. The widow/orphan control keeps the last line of a paragraph (a widow) from appearing alone at the top of a page and the first line of a paragraph (orphan) from appearing alone at the bottom of a page. 
When my modifications were complete, I clicked OK to close the Modify Style dialog box, pretty confident that my changes had taken effect. I decided, however, to create a new document at this point to see for myself if it would conform to my specifications. I knew if something were incorrect, I could always go back through the steps to fix it. But all was well. I now have my new Normal style and am liking Word 2007 better and better. :

Copyright 2010. This article is from the August 2010 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/  Web: http://www.spcug.org/