Why the issue of normal.dot has not been resolved in the
six or so years since it reared it ungly head in 97 or so,
is beyond me, but the MVP's and/or MS have had long enough
to work on it. I see their MVP's FAQ's at least have
afforded what may 'fix' my problem but it looks like what
I tried in the past, so we'll see. Anyway, the normal.dot
global template issue is still being questioned as only a
potential bug.

Frequently Asked Questions - Microsoft Word MVP FAQ Site
Got this from: Frequently Asked Questions - Microsoft Word
MVP FAQ Site
at:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/BlankDocNotBlank.htm

Close Word and, in Windows Explorer (using Find or Search
if necessary), find Normal.dot and rename it. (You can
call it anything you want, but Normal.old and
Oldnormal.dot are frequently suggested.) Then restart
Word. It will create a new Normal.dot and your Document1
and subsequent Blank Documents will be blank again.

Method 1
In Windows Explorer, press Ctrl+F, and search for
Normal.dot. Or select Start | Find | Files or folders, and
search for Normal.dot.  In Windows XP, the folder that
contains Normal.dot is a "hidden" folder. In order to find
Normal.dot, you will therefore need to go to Tools |
Folder Options, select the View tab, and check the radio
button for "Show hidden files and folders."

Depending on your Windows Explorer settings, the search
results may not display the ".dot" extension as shown in
the screen capture below, but may only display the
Word "Normal". Either way, once you have found it, don't
double-click on the file; this will just create a new
document based on it. Instead, open it by right-clicking
on the file and choosing Open.

Note that is actually much better - for all sorts of
reasons, one being that it makes it easier to find the
files you want, another being that it makes you less prone
to virus attack - to set up Windows Explorer so that it
does display all file extensions. If you have already done
so, the Windows Find dialog will display "Normal.dot" in
the search results rather than "Normal" as shown above.
Unfortunately, by default, file extensions are hidden. To
change this, select Tools + Folder Options (or depending
on your Windows version, View + Folder Options, or View +
Options); select the "View" tab, and de-select "Hide file
extensions for known file types".

Method 2
Alternatively:

1.
Select Tools | Options; and on the File Locations tab,
double-click on "User Templates" (or single-click on "User
Templates" and choose "Modify").


If you are using Word 2000 or earlier versions, this
dialog displays the path in which your custom templates
are stored (where it says "Folder Name"). Press Ctrl + C
to copy the path, and close the dialog.
 
If you are using Word 2002, finding the path has been
made unnecessarily difficult, because the "Folder name"
box in the "Modify location" dialog shows a blank. One way
to get the complete path is to click the down arrow on
the "Look in" box, which will display the folder tree. You
can then copy down the path by hand and type it into
the "File name" box in the File Open dialog. An easier way
to get the path is to select Properties on the Tools menu
in that dialog. Drag across the path shown on the General
tab and press Ctrl+C to copy it. You can then paste it
into the File Open dialog.
 
2.
Select File | Open (or press Ctrl+O); and in the Open
dialog:

If you are using Word 2000 or earlier versions, press
Ctrl+V to paste the path you copied earlier, then press
Return. This takes you straight to the right folder.

If you are using Word 2002, browse to the folder you
noted down previously.

3.
Where it says "Files of Type," you may need to
select "Document Templates (*.dot)" in order to see
Normal.dot

4.
Open the file called Normal.dot (depending on how you've
configured Windows Explorer, it may just display
as "Normal", without showing the extension).

Once you have opened Normal.dot, delete the text in it,
save the file and close. The next time you press New you
should get a Blank Document.

Creating a new Normal.dot from scratch
If you think you may not be able to return Normal.dot to
its original state - that is, if you think in addition to
extraneous text there may be modifications of margins or
styles and you're not sure how to put these back the way
they were - you may want to start over with a new
Normal.dot just the way it came out of the box. Especially
if you have not been using Word very long or haven't
customized it much, this may be the preferable alternative.

If Word does not find the Normal.dot template at startup,
it will create a new one. You could assure this by
deleting Normal.dot, but it is usually better just to
rename it. Close Word and, in Windows Explorer (using Find
or Search if necessary), find Normal.dot and rename it.
(You can call it anything you want, but Normal.old and
Oldnormal.dot are frequently suggested.) Then restart
Word. It will create a new Normal.dot and your Document1
and subsequent Blank Documents will be blank again.

Salvaging your customizations
Before you decide to rename Normal.dot, you should be
aware of what you may be losing by doing this. All
templates can store a variety of customizations, and if
you haven't explicitly chosen to store them elsewhere,
those customizations will be stored in Normal.dot. For a
complete rundown on these, see What Do Templates and Add-
ins store? Even if you haven't heavily customized Word,
you may have added some toolbar buttons or created
AutoText. In addition to toolbar customizations and
AutoText entries, templates store macros, keyboard
shortcuts, styles, and custom toolbars. Some of these can
be copied from one template to another; some can't.

What you can salvage easily
If you look at the Organizer (accessible through Tools |
Templates and Add-ins or Format | Style), you will see
that it has four tabs: Styles, Toolbars, AutoText, and
Macro Project Items. As you might deduce, using the
Organizer, you can transfer styles, custom toolbars,
AutoText entries, and macros from your renamed (old)
Normal.dot file to the fresh new one.

What you can salvage, but not so easily

1.
Note that "custom toolbars" are different from toolbar
customizations. If you've created a new toolbar from
scratch and put your custom buttons on it, you can copy
that using the Organizer. But if you've just added more
buttons to the built-in toolbars, you'll have to
temporarily copy those buttons onto a new custom toolbar
before you can use the Organizer to copy that to the new
template. (The same applies to the right-click shortcut
menus).

2.
You can't use the Organizer to copy keyboard
customizations, but you can copy most keyboard
customisations between templates using Chris Woodman's
Shortcut Organizer.

3.
(This one is for advanced users only.) You can't copy
macros that are stored in your ThisDocument module, or in
any class module (including UserForm modules), using the
Organizer; but you can go into the VB Editor (press
Alt+F11), and using the Project Explorer, either export
and then import the modules (select the module and right-
click); or copy and paste the code between templates.

A trial run
Only you can decide whether you have too much to lose by
renaming Normal.dot and starting over. But you can get a
preview of what Word will be like with a new Normal.dot by
starting Word in a special way. In Word 2002 you can
access what is called Word Safe Mode by holding down the
Ctrl key while you start Word. In previous versions, the
same thing is accomplished by using a "startup switch."
You can read more about startup switches in the Help
topic "Control what happens when you start Word." To start
Word without any templates, add-ins, or user settings (and
with the default Normal.dot), you use the /a switch.
Here's how:

1.
On the Windows Start menu, click Run.

2.
Type "Winword.exe /a" (without the quotes) and press
Return. Note the space before the forward slash.

Alternatively, you can enter the full path to Word (or
click Browse to locate it), although it shouldn't be
necessary to enter the full path unless you are running
multiple versions of Word. If you do enter the full path,
then you do need to include quotes around the path, for
example:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe" /a

Best of luck fellow YouHoosiers