Ok,

because I had spend a couple of houres with this topic and I think I am  
not the first or last person who is interested in this, I will post a  
little Howto:

The task was to create an identical footer in every new created  
word-document in our company (1.600 employees) with the following  
Information:
- UserName
- Creation Date of the Document
- Printdate
- Document Name
- Pagecount

The main problem is that you never ever should replace the normal.dot,  
because custom macros and the user settings will be lost.
The Code how to handle global events comes from this page:
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/PseudoAutoMacros.htm
(thanks to Jonathan West for the link)

How it works:
Create a new document and save it as a *.dot file
Follow the instructions on the page linked above to handle the global  
events in word.

Add the following code to the PsuedoAutoNew Sub

Private Sub PsuedoAutoNew()
    If LCase(ActiveDocument.AttachedTemplate.Name) = "normal.dot" Then
        Application.ScreenUpdating = False
        WriteDocumentFooter
        Application.ScreenUpdating = True
    End If
On Error GoTo 0
End Sub

WriteDocumentFooter is a Sub that fills the footer with content. Disable  
ScreenUpdating seems not to work in Word 2000 (maybe later versions, I had  
no change to test it.) so you see the document move to the bottom of the  
page and then to the top again within a few milisecs.

Add this sub to your code:
Private Sub WriteDocumentFooter()
    ' Go to PageFooter
    ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekCurrentPageFooter

    ' Draw a table
    ActiveDocument.Tables.Add Range:=Selection.Range, NumRows:=2,  
NumColumns:= _
        3, DefaultTableBehavior:=wdWord9TableBehavior, AutoFitBehavior:= _
        wdAutoFitFixed

    ' Add Createdate
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty,  
Text:= _
        "CREATEDATE \@ dd.MM.yyyy", PreserveFormatting:=True
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

    ' Add document name
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty,  
Text:= _
        "FILENAME ", PreserveFormatting:=True
    Selection.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphCenter
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

    ' Add Page Count (Page X of Y)
    Selection.TypeText Text:="Seite "
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty,  
Text:= _
        "PAGE ", PreserveFormatting:=True
    Selection.TypeText Text:=" von "
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty,  
Text:= _
        "NUMPAGES ", PreserveFormatting:=True
    Selection.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphRight
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

    ' Add Username
    ' If you do not maintaine the word user and company names (like us :-)  
you could write a little function to get the name from AD for example.
    ' In this case you can use the code: Selection.TypeText  
Text:=GetUserNameFromAD
    ' (GetUserNameFromAD must be a Function that returns the username
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty,  
Text:= _
        "USERNAME ", PreserveFormatting:=True
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

    ' Empty Row
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

    ' This field will be empty until you print the first time, than the  
text will be: "printed: 01.01.2111
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, _
        PreserveFormatting:=False
    Selection.TypeText Text:="IF "
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, _
        PreserveFormatting:=False
    Selection.TypeText Text:="PRINTDATE \@ ddMMyyyy"
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=2
    Selection.TypeText Text:="=""00000000"" """" "
    Selection.TypeText Text:=""""
    Selection.TypeText Text:="printed: "
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, _
        PreserveFormatting:=False
    Selection.TypeText Text:="PRINTDATE \@ dd.MM.yyyy"
    Selection.TypeText Text:=""""
    Selection.Fields.Update
    Selection.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphRight

    ' Go back to the top of the main-document
    ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekMainDocument
    Selection.MoveUp Unit:=wdScreen, Count:=1
    Selection.MoveUp Unit:=wdScreen, Count:=1
End Sub

This should produce a table at the bottom of the page that should look  
like this:
------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------

If you prefer a different formatting for the date search the string  
"CREATEDATE \@ dd.MM.yyyy" and change the "dd.MM.yyyy" to whatever you  
like (search the vba-help for the format function. Should be exactly the  
same syntax.