Customizing the Normal Document Template
When you create a new, blank document—either by clicking the New Blank Document icon on the Standard toolbar, or by choosing Blank Document in the New Document task pane—Word creates a new document based on the Normal document template, Normal.dot. The Normal template is always available when Word is running.
At the beginning of this chapter, you learned how Word finds styles, starting with the document, moving up to the document's template and, if the style name can't be found there, looking inside the Normal template.
Note
If the document is based on the Normal template, there's no intermediate step—the search progresses directly from the document to Normal.
Actually, the Normal document template is something of a misnomer. Normal.dot is no more "normal" than any other template. A more accurate name would be the default document template, the one Word uses when you create a new blank document without specifying a template. Normal.dot is frequently called the global template, because it's always available. Although other templates can be global in the sense that they're loaded when Word starts (refer to the Templates and Add-Ins dialog box, Figure 18.1, at the beginning of this chapter), no other template is tied directly to the New Blank Document icon on the Standard toolbar or the Blank Document choice in the New Document task pane.
Note
Although they share the same name, the Normal document template and the Normal style are quite different. The Normal document template—Normal.dot—is a file. Like any other template, it can be used to create new documents. The Normal style, on the other hand, is a paragraph style—a collection of paragraph and character formatting, which can be applied to a paragraph.
By default, Word 2002 starts new blank documents with the Times New Roman 12-point font, and no paragraph indenting or spacing. If you open Normal.dot, you'll see why: It contains a single paragraph mark formatted in the Normal style, and the Normal style is defined as Times New Roman 12 point, with no paragraph indenting or spacing. When Word creates a new document based on Normal.dot, it copies everything in the template into the new document—same as it does when creating a document from any template— and you end up with a new document with a single paragraph mark, with Normal style formatting.
Tip from 
If you want to change the default font for new blank documents, you don't need to mess with Normal.dot. Instead, use this hidden shortcut: Create a new blank document, and then choose Format, Font. Choose the font you want (say, Garamond 11 point), and click the Default button. From that point on, any new blank document you create will use the Garamond 11-point font for its Normal style.
If you want to change more than the default font on new blank documents, the simplest way is this:
Create a new blank document by clicking the New Blank Document icon on the Standard toolbar.
Choose Format, Styles and Formatting. In the Styles and Formatting task pane, you should see Normal highlighted. Click the down-arrow next to Normal, and then click Modify to change the Normal style.
Make whatever changes you want to make to Word's defaults for new blank documents. More-complex formatting options sit underneath the Format button: You can change the font, paragraph formatting, tabs, borders and shading, proofing language, bullets, and numbering.
When you've made all the changes you want to make, check the Add to Template box, and click OK. Because you checked Add to Template, all the modifications you made to the Normal style are reflected in this document's template—which just happens to be the Normal document template, Normal.dot.
If you've made a colossal mess of your Normal document template and want to start over, see
"Restoring the Default Normal Template"
in the
"Troubleshooting"
section at the end of this chapter.