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I have a Word 2007 template for papers I have to write up for school. It only contains the title page and the proper standard settings for all the quick markups.

On the title page I have things like "subject", "date", "course", "teacher" etc written in plain text and I replace those when I create a new document based on that template.

I don't know if doing it that way rather than using some kind of input field is the cause for it, but Word keeps asking me if I want to save changes to the template on the following occasions:

  • Merely opening the template file and trying to close Word. Not a single thing changed!
  • Random times when saving documents based on it, even though nothing at all has changed in the template itself. The dialog is different from the one above, I only get OK and cancel buttons. and there is also a "get help" button.
  • Sometimes the same dialog as in the first point (with the exclamation mark) at random times when saving.

Have I done anything wrong? What causes Word to always ask this? I've checked if the .dotx file was read-only but it isn't...

This is about Word 2007 enterprise after a fresh install and all the latest updates / Service Pack, no plugins or external stuff.

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  • Does it ask you repeatedly to save changes to your custom template, or to the global template?
    – Karan
    Sep 27, 2012 at 21:28
  • @Karan interesting article but the option was turned off. As said in the comment on Julian Knight's answer, I don't have any plugins.
    – MarioDS
    Sep 27, 2012 at 21:43
  • I might add, that I experience the same behavior after installing Office 2010 alongside 2007. Sep 29, 2012 at 7:55

4 Answers 4

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I had the same problem. I found it was due to IntegriSign.dot, an electronic signiture pad. Once uninstalled, problem finally stopped. It would also change the date on the file from its creation date to today's date, which messes up my ability to find files by date.

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  • Glad you could solve the problem, but is IntegriSign something that comes with office 2007 enterprise? Cause I never installed anything special...
    – MarioDS
    Nov 7, 2012 at 17:36
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I think I've just solved this problem, but if the solution is true it would make the cause of it quite odd.

The template I was talking about was saved in a folder on my data partition. I've recently cleared all Windows caches, MRU etc. and while I previously used the MRU in the start menu to create documents based on that template, I now had to do it via Word itself by opening the "New document" menu.

Upon selecting "my templates", I could not find that template. So what I did is move it from the folder it was in to ~\appdata\roaming\microsoft\templates where ~ is my userdir. Word now found this template to create new documents with and I used it in this way.

You would not believe it but I got no extra dialogs upon saving/closing the document. Seems like I finally cured this illness. I have hardly half an idea of what could have been wrong though. Must be that Word did not save the changes everytime I clicked "yes" to the path the .dotx file was on, but to some mysterious temporary file that got deleted at random times.

Strange thing is I used the same menu for creating a template and it just asked me where I wanted to save it.

I hope the issues don't come back.

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Is this your normal template? If so, see the description here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918064, which has a number of suggestions as to what this problem could be.

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  • See Karan's commet who linked to the same KB article, I have no luck with that. I wish I could tell exactly when the dialog appears upon a save (like I said, sometimes I get it sometimes not...)
    – MarioDS
    Sep 28, 2012 at 21:29
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Some thoughts to get started:

  • Smart Tags: Use of these can sometimes trigger changes even in templates
  • Plugins: Do you have any installed? Try disabling them.
  • Styles: Are styles set to update automatically?
  • Virus: There is a small possibility of a virus having attached itself to the template
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  • Thanks for your effort but none of those apply to me... No smart tags used, office is fresh install, template is new, styles don't update automatically (or should they?) and virusses, no way. I have a good AV for which I pay and since I'm an IT student I know how to protect myself from viruses too that may come with mail etc.
    – MarioDS
    Sep 27, 2012 at 21:08

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