I work with Office97, mostly in Word97.
I configure my toolbars deletin unused icons and putting on the toolbar such icons as are necessary for my work.
when i return and open a new page the toolbars of Word return always to their former state, with the unnecessary icons appearing instead of the new ones.
how to assure that the toolbar icons remain as I want them ?
By the way. sometimes when I save and close the file, the program asks about saving templates. I don't know how to respond to such query
please advise
thanks

"... the program asks about saving templates ..."

That's what you should do if you want to retain your icon etc settings.

Open Word (blank document). Click File, Open.

Browse to;
C:\Documents and Settings\*your_user_account_name*\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

There should be a normal.dot file. Open it.

(Assuming Windows XP is your O/S. If not, click Start, Search, and search your O/S drive for normal.dot.)

Make your changes to the icons, and page setups (width, height, headers, footers, etc). When you close, at the prompt to save, save the normal.dot template. From then on you should have your setups whenever you open a blank Word document.