Custom building blocks missing after Office update

[exlex]

Hi,


I just updated to the newest version of office (Dec 2014 version) and after rebooting and opening a file i've been working on, all of the building blocks I had created are missing. I created all of them under "Custom 1". Any idea how to get these back into the document? I tried system restore but that didn't work.

Thanks!

[Charles Kenyon]

Which version of Word. 2007? 2010? 2013/365?
All building blocks are stored in templates. They can be stored in the building blocks template, in the normal template, or in other templates.
"Custom 1" is the name of a gallery or category.
Automated Boilerplate Using Microsoft Word

[exlex]

I'm using Word 2013.

I downloaded Maxey's enhanced building block add in but I still can't seem to find the Custom 1 file with all my entries...

[exlex]

Is it possible that when I installed the latest Office update that it restored the gallery I'd created back to the default?? That would really suck

[Charles Kenyon]

Yes, it would. Again, building blocks are stored in templates.
The default storage location for AutoText is the normal template.
Office updates do not replace that template. However, if you installed Office 2013 and already had an earlier version installed (2010 or 2007) it is possible that your normal template is in a different location.
Normal Template in Microsoft Word - How to Find or Open the Normal Template

[exlex]

Thanks for the reply. I did find the normal template and tried loading it but my entries for custom 1 gallery are still not there. The normal file is blank when I open it through VBA.

Any other ideas??

[Charles Kenyon]

No. Again, you would be looking for an older version of normal.dotm, not the one that is blank. You could also look for a Backup of normal.wbk file.

Your question is sort of like me asking you where I put my keys.

[exlex]

Just an update in case someone else has this issue...

I checked everything and anything including backups and recovered files, I had no luck finding the normal.dotm template I had been using. After having a couple of people familiar with Word and building blocks look at it we determined the only thing that could have happened was that the template (normal.dotm) I had been using had completely reset back to...nothing. Not sure if this was caused by the windows update, office update or some other issue. I ended up basically starting from scratch unfortunately.

Thanks again for the help Charles.

[Charles Kenyon]

I don't save anything that I can't get along without in the normal template, and then I save a backup. Below is a screenshot of some of them in my templates folder. Only the normal.dotm is in use. This is primarily a storage for my general styles and a bunch of macro utilities that I've gathered over the years. These macros don't even show up in my macro list in Word because I have them marked as private.

Important code (macros) is exported to .bas files and that which is used on a regular basis is stored in other Global Templates. Likewise building blocks are stored in other templates, either global templates or document templates, depending on how they will be used. I seldom store my own building blocks in the default building blocks files.