Normal.dot styles suddenly lost - How can I get them back?

A few months back I upgraded from Windows XP and Office 2003 to Windows 7 and Office 2013. Until today I have had no problem using all the specialized paragraph styles that I had created in Word 2003. I generally open all my old documents in Compatibility Mode. With all my documents I have been able to click the Change Styles button and get a drop-down window listing all the styles that I had created and stored in Normal.dot. Suddenly today they are all gone - I get nothing when I click Change Styles but a couple of lines of presumably standard items. This is true of every document that I've tried opening.

I fear I must have clicked something accidentally that disconnected my Normal.dot styles from my working documents. How do I get them back?

(In Word 2003 I could open a dialogue box where I could merge styles from Normal.dot into an open document, but I can't find anything like that in Word 2013.)

If, God forbid, I can't get them back, How do I recreate specialized styles that can be used with every document?

Thanks!

Answer
Answer
If styles are missing from an existing document (and you're sure you didn't delete them), see if it could be a display issue only. In the Styles pane (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S), click the Options link. Make sure that "Select styles to show" is set to "All styles." Before closing the dialog box, select "New documents based on this template."
Stefan Blom
Microsoft 365 Word MVP since 2005
Volunteer Moderator (Office)
MS 365, Win 11 Pro
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Please note that I do not work for Microsoft
MVP program info: https://mvp.microsoft.com/
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Question Info


Last updated February 20, 2024 Views 2 Applies to: