I'm confused.



I gather I need the normal.d* template from my old install and to tell W365 to use that. And I have old normal files. But:

1) I thought Word 2016 stored templates as *.dotx, and word365 stores them as *.dotm.

2) I have a bunch of *.dotx files on my old PC's drive, but no normal.dotx. What I do have are normal.dot, whose date is about right for my last settings and a normal.dotm from a year earlier (puzzling, as I don't recall having office365 on the old machine).

So is my old normal.dot likely to be what I'm after? If I move it to the folder where Word365 has its templates, how do I get it to use that file?

Did you read the linked files? I know they are long but this is complicated.


Word has never used a file named Normal.dotx.
Since Word 2007, Word's Normal Template has been named Normal.dotm.
Any file you have that is named Normal.dotx is spurious, a mistake.


Find your old Normal.dotm file.
Where is the Normal Template / How to Find the Normal Template


Rename it to something like MyNormal.dotm.
Copy that and put it in your Word Startup Folder for your new installation.
This will install any customizations stored in that template on your new computer except for page layout and styles.