# Somewhat catastrophic problem with MS Office- Word for Mac

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhat-catastrophic-problem-with-ms-office-word-for-mac/672809>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 1, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhat-catastrophic-problem-with-ms-office-word-for-mac/672809 "2013-11-01T01:22:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhat-catastrophic-problem-with-ms-office-word-for-mac/672809/1 "2013-11-01T01:22:34Z")

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Just started MacBook Pro. Opened Word. As usual. This is what appeared in a small gray window:

Microsoft Office Word  
The Open XML file Normal.dotm cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents or the file name might contain invalid characters (for example, / ).

Details: No error detail available

I cannot open anything in Word. I’ve closed it, turned off MacBook Pro, turned back on, tried to open Word again. Same warning.

Freaked. Thoughts??

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**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhat-catastrophic-problem-with-ms-office-word-for-mac/672809/2 "2013-11-01T02:10:17Z")

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You should be able to delete normal.dotm, then start Word, at which time, a new normal.dotm will be created.

A corrupt normal.dot or .dotm file is one of the more common problems with Word. Thankfully, it’s also one of the easiest to fix.

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**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhat-catastrophic-problem-with-ms-office-word-for-mac/672809/3 "2013-11-01T08:18:54Z")

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Hi. This sounds somewhat within the limits of my capabilities.

1. Where do I find the file?
2. How do I delete it so an uncorrupted one can be re-created?

Many thanks !

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhat-catastrophic-problem-with-ms-office-word-for-mac/672809/4 "2013-11-01T08:53:49Z")

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Turns out my Hard Drive had been renamed " / " .

No clue how, but my wireless mouse has been a mess for weeks. Changed batts, no love. It does not hold when I hold the button, releases, does odd things. Time to get a new one, methinks.

Anyway, I noticed this as I was Googling on how to find and delete the file. ( Which, by the way, was not present anywhere the Microsoft experts suggested one look ! ).

Renamed the HD, all seems well. I did delete all of the com.Microsoft files under Permissions to the trash. Since the mistakenly named HDD did seem to be the culprit, should I reasonably replace the Permissions, or is it a nice idea to remove them periodically and create fresh ones?