How to migrate user settings from Word 2002 to Word 2010?

[Vento]

Hi guys! I basically run a medium level digital agency where I perform number of Search Engine Optimization activities. I have employed five of my users for the basic tasks of article submissions and all. They have been using Windows XP Service Pack 2 machine. As a version of word they use Word 2002 and have setup their own macro settings and other autocorrect settings in word 2002. Recently, me and my management team have decided to replace all these machines with Windows7, MS Office 2010 and such upgraded stuffs. But now, my demanding employees are now demanding that they want all the fonts, macros, autocorrect and other settings that they have configured in word 2002, intact with word 2010 i.e. they want all these settings to be transferred to Windows7’s office 2010. I don’t know, if this is possible by any chance. If it is possible, how to go about it? How do we transfer settings?

[Hollyn]

Hey, that sounds very interesting and lucky employees are those whose boss is concerned about what they want and have been working hard enough to fetch that for them. Anyways, I am not really sure if all your employees’ wishes will be fully satisfied. I will still peep into the resource kit and think what possible solutions are there. If I happen to find some, I’ll post back. I think, if we try, Macros may simply work. Autocorrect is the problem, I don’t know if this will work by any chance. Also, I guess we can easily transfer the fonts too.

But don’t you think, giving the user an option of using both the versions of Office is a comparatively better option? You will not have to hunt for solutions

[Koman]

The most basic and the initial most thing that you need to do before going ahead is to create a backup of each of the employees-you-are-talking-about’s Normal.dot template. Please take special care to store these backup files differently because each of the user might have customized it in their own personalized styles. After this, change its name to NormalBackup.dot. After the users gain access to their newly installed systems, NormalBackup.dot can be added to their template directory. All they have to do is to open a new Word 2010 document in the brand new system and attach the NormalBackup.dot template to that opened file and then use the Organizer which can migrate the macros, styles etc to the Normal.dotm that is just created by the Word 2010.

However, fonts are something different and they need to be dealt in a different way. The responsibility of the font does not belong to the application, it is plainly OS’s responsibility and if you have the source files of the font, you can simply copy paste it to the system

Very similarly, auto correct libraries are also supposed to be dealt in a very different manner. I have included the ways and means to do that which is as follows:

1. To start with, you need to close and exit from all the Office 2002 applications that are open, especially Word on the source system
2. Go to the source computer and find the location of the folder: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Office
3. Now, in that folder select all the files that has .acl as an extension. The name will be resembling something like: MSO1033.acl. Just for the sake of an extra knowledge, the names of .acl files are derived from a specific format which is: MSOLanguage ID Number.acl.
4. Anyways, once you have successfully done this, spot an intermediate machine that is also accessible by the second PC and copy these .acl files there. The intermediate location can also be one among, an e-mail account, a floppy disk, a network location, a flash drive or a CD
5. Now, just like you did with the source machine, you need to exit and quit all open Office 2010 applications that are open, specially word on the destination machine
6. Now, again locate the folder bearing the path C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Office on the destination computer
7. From the intermediate location where you have copy-pasted the .acl files, copy paste it again to the destination computer in the folder which follows the path of C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Office

[Vento]

I have tried whatever you mentioned and most of things worked. But not all and as a result of which I am still facing some problems. Just like you said, I backed up the Normal.dot file on the user’s machine and saved it safely. I also renamed it to NormalBackuo.dot as you rightly asked me to. I then, copy-pasted this to a folder on my new machine which bore Windows 7, the folder being C:\Users\user-name\AppData\Roaming\Template\. I happened to attach it to the template too as you mentioned by the use of developer tab and preferred selection of ‘Automatically update style’ as Ok. And when I give the input as BD1 followed by pressing the Return button, the page still appears very blank. Do you think I have missed out on anything? Is what I did correct?

[Alfons]

Are you sure it was Normal.dot? I suppose, there has to be another template which is named ‘Normal.dotm’. please note to save NormalBackup.dot very close to Normal.dotm. I know you are smart enough to take care that Normal.dotm is not replaced by you.

I also happened to read that to template using developer tab. Do you mean, you attached a template to a template? That is so not possible. When you start Word, you will find Normal.dotm opened. After which as suggested above, you need to the developer tab or organizer or what so ever to copy and paste the styles and customizations that you wish to. In order to use an earlier version of your autotext, it is possible to copy all of them NormalBackup.dot to the BuildingBlocks.dotx by following the path of Insert> Quick Parts> Building Blocks Organizer.

You can also save a shortcut of NewBackup in the startup folder of Word. However, I think that might slower the process. Do not forget to test all the copied data