John from Independence, Mo. writes:

I used to be able to number my pages in MS Word 2007. I would go to the ribbon and click on “insert”. Then I selected “Page Number” and clicked. Then “Top of Page” and “Right Side” I can no longer do it. There is error message, that reads: Microsoft Office Word
Word cannot open this document template. (C:\Users\…\1033\Building Blocks.dotx)

Unfortunately, John, what you’ve encountered is a corrupt or damaged BuildingBlocks.dotx file.

As for how to fix it… well, I’ve found a couple of different ways.

First, Microsoft offers a “fix it for you” method where you run a wizard from their site that will walk you through the steps to fixing the problem.

You can find the Fix It wizard here ^[1] then click on the Fix It button.

Click Run in the download dialog box and follow the wizard steps.

Beyond that you could choose to fix the problem yourself.

There are actually two BuildingBlocks.dotx files that are used by Word. One is located in your user data folder and the other in the program folder. Assuming that it’s only your user data file that’s corrupted you would want to move that file into a temporary location and then let Word build a new one from its default settings.

To accomplish this use the following steps.

1. Exit Word 2007.
2. Click Start, click Run, type ”%appdata%\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033″, and then clickOK.
3. Move the Building Blocks.dotx file to a temporary folder.
4. Start Word 2007.

If this does the trick, then it was only the user data BuildingBlocks.dotx file that was damaged and you’re now good to go.

Should this still not work then it’s both files that are corrupted or damaged and you’ll need to actually repair the Office 2007 Program System (or Word 2007 if it’s a stand-alone program).

To do this complete this task use the steps below:

1. Exit all 2007 Office programs.
2. Click Start, click Run, type ”%appdata%\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033″, and then clickOK.
3. Move the Building Blocks.dotx file to a temporary folder.
4. Click Start, click Run, type ”%programfiles%\Microsoft Office\Office12\Document Parts\1033″, and then click OK.
5. Move the Building Blocks.dotx file to a temporary folder.
6. Close both folders.
7. Click Start, click Run, type appwiz.cpl, and the click OK.
8. In the Currently installed programs list, click the version of the 2007 Office system that is installed on the computer. Or, click Word 2007 if you have the stand-alone version installed on the computer.
9. Click Change, click Repair, and then click Continue.

Once you’ve got Word’s page numbers working again you can delete the BuildingBlocks.dotx file(s) that were put into a temporary location – they are no longer needed.

~ April