How to Fix MS Word After It Crashes

Many of Word’s problems are related to the Normal.dot file. This is the master template behind Word. When you start Word, this is the file that determines the page layout, fonts, styles and so on.

When this file get damaged, for example a very long document may have many tables, bullet lists and headers, which may cause it to collapse under the weight of trying to remember all these settings.

When the Normal.dot file crashes, MS Word crashes.

However, it’s not as bad as it sounds. If you delete this file, and restart Word, a new clean version of the Normal.dot file is automatically created.

To delete and then recreate the Normal.dot file, follow these steps:

  1. Make a copy of your Normal.dot file.
    It’s usually found at: C:Documents and Settings\Application DataMicrosoftTemplates
  2. Delete the original Normal.dot
  3. Close down and then re-start the computer.

Word automatically creates a new Normal.dot and goes back to its default settings.

This may also improve its performance and reduce the likelihood of it crashing.