Maintaining certain Toolbar and View settings

Hi,

Word won't allow me to permanently change my Toolbars and Tool|Options|View
settings.

I can't seem to permanently turn off the display of certain Toolbars--even
though I disable them in the document (and the associated templates for that
matter) and then Save. I have also tried disabling the display in the Tools
| Customize menu and saving--to no avail.

In addition, I would like to retain my Tools | Options | View settings. For
example, I might have Hidden Text enabled when I open the document, but I
want to suppress its display. So I turn it off, click OK in the Options
dialog, and then Save.

However when I close and then reopen the document in question, both the
Toolbars and the Tool|Options|View settings revert to the pre-saved
condition.

FWIW, I use Word 2003 (SP3).

Any help will be appreciated.

thanks,

-john