Hello everyone

I am using word 2003 (xp environment). All of a sudden, whenever I open a word document, all the drop-down menus in Word are not usable. For example, when I click on "File" the mouse cursor becomes a small cross with arrows on each end. Like when
you move an XP window around. The drop-down menus only become available only after
I highlight a text and right-click on it.

I have tried re-installing word but it did not make a difference.



Can somebody please help me?
Many thanks

What happens when you open Word in safe mode instead?

The best way to check on this is to start Word in Office Safe Mode (press Ctrl while Word is loading and answer yes when asked if you want to start in Safe Mode); if you can do what you want normally in safe mode, then you know the problem is with Normal.dotm, the Registry, an add-in, or the printer driver.

For more help, see “How to troubleshoot problems that occur when you start or use Word 2010, Word 2007, Word 2003, or Word 2002” at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541. (preceding cribbed from an answer by Suzanne Barnhill – if it works give her the credit, if not, let me know)

Hi Charles

Thank you for your reply. I loaded word in safe mode and there is no problem with the dropdown menus. I followed the solutions from the microsoft link you posted and it turned out that by deleting the normal.dot file and letting word create a new one on startup, fixed the problem. Thank you very much for your help.

Do you know why Normal.dot got corrupted? Do you think it has to do with the size?
The old normal.dot file was 340KB. Is not big but I am just wondering. Maybe is big for Word.

Many thanks

That is not that big a file. With Word 97 I started keeping my key customizations in other files and making regular backups of normal.dot.