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I am able to locate normal.dotm but don't see what I can actually do with it! No 'repair' option. Also, an error message 'unable to save global normal as I am opening WORD from a 'read only' folder. I have checked all 'info' data and appear to be able to read and write! What am I missing? Have checked all sources of help but unable to find definitive solution! Help!
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)
Quit Word, Force Quit if necessary.
In Finder, pull down on the Go menu while pressing Option, and click on "Library".
In Library, open the folder "Group Containers"
In Group Containers, open the folder "xxxxxxxxx.Office", (where xxxxxxxx may be some kind of serial number, I am not sure if it is the same or different for each user, but it is the only .Office folder)
In the xxxxxxxxx.Office folder, open the folder "User Content"
In the User Content Folder, open "Templates"
In Templates, trash any file with the name "Normal," including the .bak files.
Restart Word; this worked for me.
This might be a little late but figure to put in my 2 cent. I'm a IT admin and had to deal with the same problem for an employee recently. Turns out the problem was caused by the user accidentally renaming the Macintosh HD on the desktop to something else. Oddly enough it doesn't affect the Mac from booting up and still allows you to open most apps except for programs like Office. Changing the name back to "Macintosh HD" fixed it for me.
Give this a try before doing something drastic like reformatting the computer.
That method is not consistent, my HD has never been called MacintoshHD and I have never had a problem opening Word's templates, any of them.
I tried the other methods mentioned in this discussion and others to no avail regarding creating new templates and deleting files in the var folders.
Maybe I should have used the phrase "your default HD name" instead of "Macintosh HD" to explain my solution. In any case, I'm just glad I was able to fix the problem without having to reformat the Mac since this was the Senior VP's computer. =)
MacintoshHD is the default name, I have no idea what you are going on about but every single drive that has had a name change has also stopped using MacintoshHD as its drive name.
Wow! Thank you ... your solution was perfect.
Worked for me! Simple fix in my case without resorting to more drastic and time consuming.
Word 2016 for Mac Won't Open Docs - Cannot open global template - Microsoft Community
Kindly click on the above link for solution from Microsoft community
Worked for me aswell! Cheers
Thank you! This worked great!
Completed in less than 3m and back into Word typing away at what I was working on before this message appeared. Great offering of assistance. Thank you.
word cannot open the existing template
Thank you so much. I have been going nuts all afternoon and this totally worked for me.
Thanks for this. I was going nuts all afternoon and this worked great!
This saved me from the ignorant timesuck suggestion from Microsoft to do a total uninstall/reinstall.
Thank you!
Thanks for your direction!
Word cannot open the existing global template Normal.dotm
