I've been comparing both documents and the only difference I have seen and believe which is not working on my work laptop is because of the 'Normal' reference that I have on my desktop.

I added:
changedXml = Replace(changedXml, " " & " ", "")
changedXml = Replace(changedXml, vbLf & vbLf, "")

but as stated it doesn't fix the issue I was having on my work laptop which is where I need it.

Open your document and go to Developer|Document Template>Templates. if it's not 'Normal', use 'Attach' to browse to the Normal template's location (see https://www.msofficeforums.com/word/...locations.html) and select it.

That said, the only way I can see that your laptop installation wouldn't be loading the Normal template is if it's configured with a command-line switch to load a different template. See: Command-line switches for Microsoft Office products - Office Support

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]