Forum Discussion
As of Noon January 3, 2024, macros have stopped working in Word 365. How can this be corrected?
Microsoft has confused things with their naming.
Microsoft 365 is a subscription product that sometimes is used to describe the web version and can also include the traditional applications which have to be downloaded and installed.
If you have access to the visual basic editor, you are using the traditional downloaded applications.
Do you have a copy of your old Normal.dot file from Word 2003? That is where your macros were recorded.
If so, you could simply save it in your Word Startup Folder and you should have access to the macros.
I recommend opening that file in Word and then, in the visual basic editor renaming the project and module. Your macros should be in the NewMacros module. I again urge you to look at the article on organizing your macros. You may also want to look at Organizing your Add-Ins by Greg Maxey and VBA Basics by Greg Maxey.
Many of the Macro tools can be found on the Developer Tab.
Hi, Charles. Reading your response to CarolV007 -- specifically, "Do you have a copy of your old Normal.dot file from Word 2003? That is where your macros were recorded." -- I soon was wondering what relevance, or utility, such old Normal.dot files could have, in this situation where a Microsoft update has apparently kneecapped all VBA users.
It turns out I do have such a copy, because -- ever fearful of losing something important -- I'd committed all the contents of my old Dell XP to my relatively massive Windows 10 hard drive.
So: what is the special utility of such old .dot (or .dotm) files to this particular, current, massive screwup by Microsoft?
Thank you foir your response. It's the first one that made any sense whatsoever and was easy to follow. However, my macro issue is with Word. There is no option to open and repair.
Thanks again. I'll keep trying to get this fixed once and for all. In the meantime, I've switched back to using WordPerfect for my needs.
I have the same problem with vba errors in my files since november's update of 365. The error appears in different places in the code or even there is no possibility to access the code. My method to retrieve the code is to open the file by "open and repair" method.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/repair-a-corrupted-workbook-153a45f4-6cab-44b1-93ca-801ddcd4ea53
It usually works. The question is why does it take so long to fix it? There are a lot of questions about it in different places but the problem still occurs...- You can see their names. Where do you see them? How do you see them?
Have you tried moving your macros to a separate global template? - Not sure if it was restarting or going through the links you sent me did allow me to record my macros.. Then I think it was yesterday, they just stopped working again. I can see their names, but I cannot access them. I am unable to run or edit them.
Here is a link to the less-technical forum, where you posted before.
A store is VERY UNLIKELY to be able to help with this. Likewise Geek Squad, etc.
You've restarted a lot in the last month. Has it ever helped?
- Charles, I've done the restart a lot this past month, as this macro situation has been ongoing. I am now at the point that I don't think I'm in the correct Microsoft Community. Most answers are too technical for me. I am not associated with a corporation or have an IT person. I'm a self-employed typist just trying to get words to paper and using a handful of macros to perform menial formatting tasks.
As a last resort, I'll be taking my desktop to a computer store and hope that someone there can help me. When Word and macros give a problem, the first step is to restart the computer and Word.
Here are additional references:
I cannot tell you what happened to your macros. In this case you will need to either find your backup copy that you made yourself (not something Word will have done if there are no other files with "normal" in the name in your user templates folder), or recreate them.
I suspect that either you have a poorly acting Add-In or you are on a corporate network with an IT department that likes to control the Normal template.
In either case, keeping your macros somewhere other than your Normal.dotm template will likely prevent the problem in the future.
From a previous post I made here:
Second, I do not keep macros I value in the normal template. I keep them in document templates or custom Global Templates. I have been using Word for more than 30 years and learned a long time ago that things, bad things, seem to happen periodically to the Normal template. This is not necessarily Microsoft's fault. There are other things out there that mess with the normal template.
***
References:
- Auto Text is not my issue. I use Macros to perform repetitive keyboard tasks.
Well, the macro problem has started again today. All was well yesterday. What did I do to cause my macros to disappear.
Does anyone have a nice, concise step by step process I can do to get them going again. I cannot create new macros or edit those already created.
If you are using macros for text snippets, you are using the wrong Word feature. You should be using AutoText, which can also have keyboard shortcuts.
Both AutoText and AutoCorrect can be used for text snippets. These are different features and are both valuable. I use both virtually every time I use Word.
AutoText can have keyboard shortcuts and can AutoComplete; AutoCorrect acts on trigger words as you type. Here are some more resources:
- Exploiting AutoCorrect by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
- Using Autotext to deal with repetitive text - Legal Office Guru
- Create reusable text snippets
- Word for Wordperfect Users
- AutoFormat and AutoCorrect (Tame AutoFormat) by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
For anyone who uses Word more than occasionally, I recommend the series of short tutorials prepared by Shauna Kelly a while back. Basic Concepts of Microsoft Word - from Shauna Kelly
If you haven't been using AutoText or AutoCorrect, I would guess that you may not have been using Styles to your advantage, either. The Importance of Styles in Microsoft Word
If you want to track down more on your macros, I recommend looking at some of the threads you will find on the Microsoft Answers forum. Here are three searches there:
- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/search/search?SearchTerm=macros%20stopped%20working&tab=&status=...
- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/search/search?SearchTerm=can%27t%20record%20macro&tab=&status=al...
- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/search/search?SearchTerm=macros%20broken&tab=&status=all&advFil=...
Other resources:
First, I am a fellow user, not someone speaking for Microsoft.
Second, I do not keep macros I value in the normal template. I keep them in document templates or custom Global Templates. I have been using Word for more than 30 years and learned a long time ago that things, bad things, seem to happen periodically to the Normal template. This is not necessarily Microsoft's fault. There are other things out there that mess with the normal template.
Third, in answer to your question of what good an older Normal template can do... If you stored your valuable macros in that template (as that is where they go by default when recorded) they are still there. They can be retrieved from there for placement in a new Normal template or in a separate global template.
References:
I don't want to give the impression that I do not store macros in the Normal template. I do, primarily for reference. The ones that I depend on to get my work done, I store elsewhere. In my Normal template I have more than 500 macros organized into more than 50 separate modules. I use those as samples or to perform tasks I seldom do. Almost all of them are designated as "Private" in scope so they do not even show up in my macro list in the user interface. I go into the vb editor to use them.
