[Word 2013] "Normal.DOTM is already open as an add-in"?

New Daddy
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[Word 2013] "Normal.DOTM is already open as an add-in"?

Post by New Daddy »

Now that I've decided to fully transition to Word 2013 from Word 2003, I'm making adjustments to replicate my working environment that I had with Word 2003. One of the key environment is work settings synchronization. I had it accomplished pretty easily with Word 2003 using Dropbox. By having both my work Word 2003 and home Word 2003 pointing to the same normal.dot template in a Dropbox folder -- and immediate "save all" whenever I did something to affect normal.dot -- I had seamless synchronization of the working environment across multiple computers.

But with Word 2013, this doesn't seem to be working, which is very strange. I've been using Word 2013 at home with Normal.dotm residing in a Dropbox folder. With Word 2013 newly installed at my work computer, I had it point to the same Dropbox folder for templates. But now, I'm getting a "The global template, NORMAL.DOTM, is already open as an add-in program" error at the beginning of starting Word 2013. When I press the OK button and continue, it doesn't load Normal.dotm in the Dropbox folder. As a result, it doesn't fully inherit the customization -- e.g., keyboard shortcuts -- that I've been building with my home computer.

Any idea why this is happening?

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Rudi
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Re: [Word 2013] "Normal.DOTM is already open as an add-in"?

Post by Rudi »

Hi New Daddy,

Ensure that the Startup folder and the Template folder are not the same! If they point to the same location Word will get confused looking for the Normal template twice in the same folder. For example, this error will occur if both your User Template and Startup settings point to for argument sake: C:\WINWORD\TEMPLATE.
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Rudi

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New Daddy
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Re: [Word 2013] "Normal.DOTM is already open as an add-in"?

Post by New Daddy »

Rudi wrote:Hi New Daddy,

Ensure that the Startup folder and the Template folder are not the same! If they point to the same location Word will get confused looking for the Normal template twice in the same folder. For example, this error will occur if both your User Template and Startup settings point to for argument sake: C:\WINWORD\TEMPLATE.
Hi Rudi,

Yes, that turned out to be part of the problem. (I think I had no issue having User Template and Startup point to the same folder in Word 2003.. Anyways..)

By making the two destinations different, I was able to have Word load Normal.dotm. However, the settings don't appear to be exactly the same as my home computer. For example, the macros are disabled and some of the keyboard shortcuts that execute macros don't work.

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Rudi
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Re: [Word 2013] "Normal.DOTM is already open as an add-in"?

Post by Rudi »

Hi,

Check the following settings on your work PC.
If you choose File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings
Look at Macro Settings and Trusted Locations
You can attempt to set up the location of the Normal Template as a trusted location or see if you can enable macros.

Please note: I refer to the above in ignorance of any negative aspects of of these actions. I just know that using these setting desensitizes Word's far too tight security! (IMHO).
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Rudi

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New Daddy
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Re: [Word 2013] "Normal.DOTM is already open as an add-in"?

Post by New Daddy »

Rudi wrote:Hi,

Check the following settings on your work PC.
If you choose File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings
Look at Macro Settings and Trusted Locations
You can attempt to set up the location of the Normal Template as a trusted location or see if you can enable macros.

Please note: I refer to the above in ignorance of any negative aspects of of these actions. I just know that using these setting desensitizes Word's far too tight security! (IMHO).
Ok, that did solve the problem. By adding the folders containing my template files to the "Trusted Locations", I was able to activate the macros in Normal.dotm.

But a bigger question still lingers: so these "trusted source" settings are not part of the Normal.dotm? The whole point of using a synchronized Normal.dotm was exactly to avoid a situation like this. With Word 2003, pretty much every option was replicated with Normal.dot. Is the Normal.dotm much less inclusive as far as user settings and customization are concerned?

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Rudi
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Re: [Word 2013] "Normal.DOTM is already open as an add-in"?

Post by Rudi »

New Daddy wrote:But a bigger question still lingers: so these "trusted source" settings are not part of the Normal.dotm? The whole point of using a synchronized Normal.dotm was exactly to avoid a situation like this. With Word 2003, pretty much every option was replicated with Normal.dot. Is the Normal.dotm much less inclusive as far as user settings and customization are concerned?
Nothing has changed from the point of view of the Normal.dotm. It is just a template that stores customized settings like any of its predecessors. What has changed is the security settings of Office (starting with Office 2007 and onwards). With the introduction of its xml based formats and compatibility with web technologies, security was tightened up and further increased with the later versions. (One can see it with this array of options in the Trust Center: Trusted Publishers, Locations, Documents, Active-X settings, macro Settings, Protected View, File Block Settings....)
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As a matter of fact, in my screenshot, the Trusted Locations is on default settings (as far as I know...I have not modified anything there), but you will notice that the default Template and Startup Folders and automatically trusted...probably to ensure that customization are readily made available to the application. In your case, since you have a user defined location for your Normal.dotm, it was just a matter of ensuring that path was registered as a Trusted location. Word 2003 did not have this service/hurdle, so things appeared to work smoother.
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Rudi

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