Changing the default margins, paragraph, and font for all Word documents

Some add-ins will prevent Word from saving changes in the Normal.dotm template file when you use the Set as Default buttons.

One way to work around this is to open the Normal.dotm template as a document, make the changes there, and save it. Unfortunately, the template file is stored in a folder under the AppData folder in your user profile, which is marked as Hidden. The easiest way to get it opened as a document is to follow these steps:

• Press Alt+F11 to open the macro editor. (You don't need to know anything about macros!)
• Press Ctrl+G to open the Immediate window at the bottom of the editor.
• Type or paste this into the Immediate window and press Enter:  NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument
• Close the macro editor.

The Normal.dotm template will be open in Word; you'll see its name in the title bar at the top of the window. Make any formatting changes you want, save, and close.

One caveat: If you ever use the Mailings > Labels feature, don't save anything in the header or footer of the Normal.dotm template. That would throw off the alignment of the label text with respect to the labels in the printer.

It might be worth the time and effort to disable or uninstall one add-in at a time to see whether you can isolate one that's interfering with saving the template.