Related Resources • Creating Macros • Assigning Shortcut Keys to Symbols • Changing the Default File Location • Protecting the Normal Template

If you have made a lot of customizations to Word, it is a good idea to back your settings up periodically. This ensures that, should you ever need to reinstall Word or should your hard drive take a nose-dive, you won’t have to go through the process of re-customizing the options you specified for things such as toolbars, default file save location, default templates, and the like. If you have other Microsoft Office applications on your computer, the Save My Settings Wizard will also save the settings you specified for those components as well.

1. First close any Microsoft Office components that are open

2. From the Program menu, select Microsoft Office Tools



3. From the submenu, select Save My Settings Wizard



4. Click Next



5. Select Save the settings from this machine

6. Click Next

7. Select Save the settings to a File

8. When the box below the label turns white, Click the Browse button

9. Use the Save window to browse to the location where you would like to save the file – be sure to select a location that you will remember and that will be easily accessible. In the File Name box, specify a name and then click Save

10. You will be returned to the Microsoft Office Save My Settings Wizard dialog box; the name and file path you specified will appear in the box below the label



11. Click Finish

If you have made a lot of customizations to word that would be difficult to restore manually, it is a good idea to save the file to a floppy disc or a cd-rom as well as saving the settings as a file on your hard drive. Make this part of your back-up routine: Each time you back up files stored on your hard drive, include a recent version of your Microsoft Word/Office settings. As further incentive, if you have the file on removable media, you can use it to port your settings to a second computer.



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