re Mr Red comment:

Leave Normal.dot for the ordinary stuff.

If you want nice stuff, open Word, set up a "bare-bones" document the way you want it - leaving blanks to fill in. Save it as a "Template." (a ".dot").

Then when you want the nice stuff, click "File - New" and select that template.

You can have a different kind of nice for each sort of thing you do.

Normal.dot is just the default. You can, and should, roll-your-own.

John