I used to work for a company that makes bespoke software to manage
business processes in finance and litigation, both of which obviously
involve some people in writing a lot of letters.

We didn't try to reinvent the wheel by attempting to write our own
word-processing programmes, particularly since we knew our customers
would already have one that they'd paid a lot of money for; we asked
them what they used (usually Word) and set our applications up to launch
it whenever a letter was needed. It's common -- and very sensible --
practice.

Steve



Uncle Joe wrote:
The MVPs are best equipped to answer your question about
Normal.dot since I've never had problems with it. But you've
piqued my curiosity because all your posts mention that all
your 15+ users launch Word from a mysterious third party
application. What is this third party application?

"Roger Marrs" wrote in message ...

No, this is a different issue. Word tells me that Normal.dot is in use.
This happens even though Normal.dot is not in my startup folder. Normal.dot
is in the default .../Word/Templates folder.

Our office has a file folder on a shared network drive where a Word Document
Template file is stored. In Options File Locations everyones Word
application is set to that file folder on the shared drive as the location
for the startup folder. It's my understanding that in order to make a
template file available as an add-in, then the file path for the Startup
Folder has to be set to the location where that document template is saved.

Out of 15 + users, only I have problems with Normal.dot being in use when I
use Word.

Now that I've corrected the file path for my user templates, my settings in
File Locations are the same as every other user in the office. Everyone in
the office launches Word from the same third party software. I am the only
person who gets the "Normal.dot is in use" message. It's really
frustrating.

Roger

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...

Is this not the same issue we've already solved?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup

so

all may benefit.

"Roger Marrs" wrote in message
. ..

I am getting a dialog box stating that Normal.dot is already in use by
another user or application. I only get this message if I already have

a

word document open and then launch Word from a third party application.
When I try to close the word document launched from the third party
application, I get the dialog box about Normal.dot. I've been running

the

third party application for several months without any problems. So I'm
wondering whether there is some setting within Word that I modified that

I

shouldn't have that has caused this problem.

Roger Marrs