When I open any of my personal documents (under Word 2019) and click on Margins button the ribbon pops-up for half a second and than vanish... just remain in the bottom of the ribbon a 'custom margins...' box.


I wonder what happened; PLEASE HELP me to recover the full margins settings???
Thanks a lot !

Try repairing Office.
Repair an Office application - Office Support

I already did so Charles, but unfortunately still same issue !!!

Try starting Word in Safe mode.
Any difference?
Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC - Microsoft Office

If not, try deleting the built-in building blocks file. This should not work because this gallery is not a building block gallery, but it can't hurt.
Page numbering /header / footer problems Word 2007 - 2019 (365)

Thank you Charles.

- I opened Word in safe mode > same issue !
- then I renamed all building block files I found in the roaming directory (c:\Users\{your username}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks) > same issue !
... do you have another suggestion ?

The document I am working on is indeed a very large file with headers and footers and about a week ago when saving and exiting Word I was surprised to see a message asking me if yes or no I would like to save or not building blocks. Working with Word already for a long time I never saw that message before and as I was afraid to loose all of my work I agreed to save the blocks... perhaps doing so caused the probem ???

Do you have another suggestion for me ?

The question about saving Building Blocks started with a recent release of Word. It is a bug. The question will come up whenever you use a building block. Here is the thread about this.
Using any Building Block triggers warning message about changes to Building Blocks.dotx Page Numbers, Cover Page, Header, Footer, Text Box
It did not cause this problem. You can rename your files back.

Work-around - can you click on Custom Margins?

You can also use the Dialog Launcher in the bottom right corner of the group to open the Page setup dialog. This is the same dialog you would get using Custom Margins.

Yes I can click on Custom Margins and also on Dialog Launcher and both show me the actual settings, but NO-WAY to get shown the extended list of presetted margins !...

Can I simply delete the building blocks ?

Perhaps try an Office repair in Win 10 safe mode ?...

The menu is not building blocks. That suggestion was why not try it in case it might work. Deleting Built-In-Building Blocks.dotx will not do anything. Deleting Building Blocks.dotx will delete any custom building blocks you stored there and will not help you with this menu.

If it is that important to you, you can try a complete uninstall/reinstall using the FixIt tool. I think this is overkill for what seems to me a minor glitch. It will likely take you several hours. Uninstall Office from a PC - Office Support

I do not know that this will fix it, either.


Basic advice would be to create templates that have the margins you want and use those templates for new documents.

I hope you are not using Margin changes when you should be using Indent changes.
Margins and Indents in Word

Hi Charles,
... just to inform that finally I uninstalled my 2019 and reinstalled the latest version
Now everything is OK again but closing my Word sessions I still always get the message about saving or not the building blocks !
What to do with that ?

This is a bug in recent versions of Word. You will be prompted to save the Built-In Building Blocks.dotx file even though you have made no changes to the building blocks.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Thank you @Stefan, but if you read this topic you see that I (probably) lost part of my Word functions after accepting to save Building Blocks... and that I had to completely reinstall Office !
So, not so safe ?

Well, this is an old thread, so I confess that I hadn't read all the posts. :-)

You should choose NOT to save the Building Blocks.dotx file.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

OK @Stefan... will do so !
You can close this tread. Thanks

The saving building blocks, or not had nothing to do with the problem with the margins.

There is a classical logical fallacy:
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
A followed B, therefore A caused B.


That menu is not even in building blocks.


Right now, that warning gets triggered whenever you use a building block (not change, use). That includes:

• Tables of Contents
• Page Numbers
• Headers & Footers
• Text Boxes
• Cover Pages
• AutoText

That is happening to everyone who uses the latest versions of Word 2016-2019/365.


Anyway, glad that you got your margin selections back.