today normal template is full of small squares

[weed47]

When I open a new Word 2019 document today, it is full of very small squares. I can type over the squares, but I still see them, so apparently they are a background. I tried erasing Normal.dotm, but the new Normal.dotm that is created when I open another new document has not changed.
I am not able to do any editing of a document with the very small squares before typing anything in, so I can't get rid of the squares.
The Normal.dotm template I see is attached.