The Normal template is the document that stores all of Word’s formatting defaults: the font, paragraph, margins, and page size information. It’s used whenever you create a new, blank document. All that stuff can change, but to do so you first need to hunt down the Normal template file and edit it directly. That isn’t easy.

Say you’re sick of your new documents popping up with 12 point Calibri as the “body” font and the line spacing at 1.05 — or whatever the silly value it. You can change those settings from within Word, but once you know the document formatting commands, it’s better to just summon the Normal document template and edit it directly.

To directly edit the Normal template you must find the Normal template file. Microsoft does a damn find job of hiding it, but with recent versions of Windows the location is rather consistent:

C:\Users\your_account_name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\

There. If you get that line, then you can find the template files. Otherwise, you need to use the Open dialog box from within Word to hunt down the files. Here are the enumerated steps:

1. Press Ctrl+O to summon the Open dialog box.
2. Navigate to your main account folder: In the Address bar, click on your account name. On my computer, it looks like C:\Users\Dan
3. Choose the AppData folder. If you don’t see AppData, append the text AppData to the address shown in the address bar.
4. Open the Roaming folder.
5. Open the Microsoft folder.
6. Open Templates folder.
7. Open the Normal.dotm file.

What you see in Word’s window is the Normal template, the one Word uses every time it starts a document. You’re free to edit it, which changes every document attached to that template. Just follow my template and style information presented in Word For Dummies and you’ll be fine. The following video shows some key points.

(Click in the lower right corner of the video to view it full-screen.)

As a bit of advice — strong advice — I highly recommend making and using unique templates for each document you create, as described in my Word For Dummies books. Do not modify the Normal template unless you really, really use it alone and no other templates.