Move Your Word X Normal Template to Safety
The Problem:
Word X was acting up persistently, so I reinstalled Office. Everything's fine, exceptand it's a big "except"Word has wiped out all the changes I'd made in the Normal template and issued me a completely vanilla one.
The Solution:
Bad luck. When you reinstall Word X, your Normal template gets overwritten if it is in its default location. However, if you've checked the "Always create backup copy" box in the Save tab of the Preferences dialog box (Word 
Preferences), there should be a backup copy of the last time you saved the Normal template. Quit Word, navigate to the /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Templates folder, and look for a file named Backup of Normal. Rename this to Normal, and restart Word.
To avoid losing customizations you've made to your Normal template from now on, move it to a different folder. Here's what to do:
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Quit Word. If it prompts you to save changes to the Normal template, save them.
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In the Finder, create a folder to hold your templates. For example, you might create a Microsoft User Data folder in the ~/Documents folder, which is what Word 2004 uses. Move the Normal template to this folder.
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Restart Word, choose Word
Preferences, click the File Locations tab, click the "User templates" item, and click the Modify button. Select the new folder, click the Choose button, and then click the OK button to close the Preferences dialog box.