Resetting Word

Nancy just started working at a small company, so she inherited a computer (and Word) from the person she replaced. The previous employee configured tons of Word's settings to his liking, which Nancy understands. She wonders, though, if there is a way to "reset" Word to its default settings so I can get back to a state where she can start making changes according to her preferences.

In order to reset Word, you need to essentially delete the places where Word stores settings. There are two such places: the Normal template and the Word Registry key. In addition, you'll want to make sure that you get rid of any documents that Word may load by default.

Before you start deleting things, however, you need to jump into Word and jot down a piece of information:

1. Display the Word Options dialog box.
2. At the left side of the dialog box, click Trust Center.
3. Click the Trust Center Settings button. Word displays the Trust Center.
4. At the left side of the Trust Center, click Trusted Locations. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Trusted Locations area of the Trust Center.

5. In the list of locations, locate and click once on the location that contains the word "Startup."
6. Note the full path for the location, located just below the list of locations. (Jot it down or copy it to somewhere like a temporary text document so you can refer to it later.) If, in your version of Word, you cannot see the full path in the dialog box, click the Modify button and you can see it in the resulting dialog box.
7. Repeatedly click the Cancel button until you've closed all the open dialog boxes.

Now you can get out of Word entirely and start to delete places that Word stores settings. First, you'll want to get rid of the Normal template. Use the Windows Search tool to locate the files Normal.dot and Normal.dotm. If you find either of them, simply delete them. Note that deleting Normal.dot will delete macros, as well, but that shouldn't be an issue, since you are wanting to reset Word.

Next, you'll need to edit the Windows Registry, in this manner:

1. Exit Word.
2. Start your favorite Registry editor.
3. Locate the following data key. (This data key, as shown below, is for Word 2016 or a later version. If you are using Word 2007, replace 16.0 with 12.0, for Word 2010 replace it with 14.0, and for Word 2013 replace it with 15.0.)

     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word

4. Delete the entire key.
5. Close the Registry editor.

Next, it is a good idea to locate the Startup folder. This the folder path you should have jotted down near the very beginning of this tip. Use the Explorer to navigate to the folder and then delete anything within it. (Anything in the Startup folder is normally loaded and run when you start Word.)

After these things are complete, you should be able to restart Word and start making the configuration changes and customizations you want to make.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13947) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.