[Dba-office] Normal.dotm issue

I've had a few readers ask why certain changes to Normal.dotm don't seem to
stick and I don't have a good answer. To test, I changed the background
color for Normal.dotm. When I open the file using File Open, the color's
there. When I click New to open a new document, it isn't.

Although I was using application.NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument to open the
file, I made a further test, just to make sure I was actually modifying the
right file. I added some text.

When opening Normal.dotm via File Open, the new background color and text
are there. When clicking New to open a new blank document based on
Normal.dotm, only the text is there.

I know that you can't change everything at the template level, but the
background color seems like a logical choice for a template. Perhaps the
explanation is simple -- you just can't change the background color for
Normal.dotm.

I feel like I should just know the underlying explanation, but I don't and
if I did, I've forgotten it.

Susan H.