![]() Jan 26, 2012 Deploy custom templates in. You can create and deploy these Office 2010 templates for users of Microsoft Word. To create a template (in Word. Where Are Custom Templates Stored For Microsoft Office? Word Template.dotx and save your file into there. Options, Add-Inns, Templates, Go. How to Create a Template How (and why) to create a template in Word This article addresses what a template is (and what it is not) and when a template is needed (and when it is not) and provides version-specific instructions for creating one in Word 2003 and above. This article addresses only the mechanics of creating and saving a template. For more about the content you might want to include in a template, see. • • • • • • • • • In the most general sense, a template is a pattern or model on which something else is based. It might be a shape that you trace around or an outline of suggested content. In Word, however, the word template has a specific technical sense: A Word template is a particular kind of file, with a different file extension from a document (.dot,.dotx, or.dotm instead of.doc,.docx, or.docm). A better way to think of a template is as a collection of tools for creating a specific kind of document. It could be considered an extension of Word’s styles, which are containers for sets of properties. Word provides a variety of styles to format text. • A character style is used to apply font properties to text; for example, instead of applying Bold and Italic separately, you can create a character style to apply both Bold and Italic. • A paragraph style is used to apply both character and paragraph formatting (as well as such other properties as frames, borders, and shading). • A table style applies specific formatting to various parts of a table. • A list style applies numbering and indents to text. ![]() • A template is a container for all these types of styles, as well as settings for paper size and orientation, margins, number of columns, and other document-level formatting. Every document is based on a template. If you don’t choose a different template (that is, if you use the default Blank Document), your document is based on the Normal template (Normal.dot in Word 2003 and earlier, Normal.dotm in Word 2007 and above), which is also the “global” template that stores many of the customizations you make in Word. Earlier versions of Word (including Word 2003) also came with a number of built-in templates, but it was possible to remain unaware of them if you never visited the New dialog where they lived. ![]() The Dynamics 365 entity field is added to the Word template. > Word Templates > Create Word Template. There are five Word templates included with Microsoft. Apr 14, 2017 How to Add Templates in Microsoft Word. Templates make it easier to create new documents in your word processing program. Microsoft Word comes with many templates. ![]() Starting Word created a new Blank Document, and the New button on the Standard toolbar, by default, also created a new Blank Document. In Word 2013 and 2016 it has become almost impossible not to be aware of the fact that there are other templates available because, by default, Word opens to a Start screen that asks you to choose a template. In Word 2007 and 2010, the default way to create a new document also opens a window or pane featuring a variety of templates or template categories. These templates are expressly designed for specific types of documents: letters, reports, invoices, invitations, flyers, and so on. Increasingly they are stored online (at Office.com), and you must have an Internet connection to access them. Although many of the templates you can download from Office.com contain sample content, a template is not really about content but about structure and layout. A template is designed to provide specific page layout (page size and orientation, margins, number of columns, and so on) and styles for the types of paragraphs most likely to be used in the given type of document. It may also contain tools to facilitate using the included styles and other features. In Word 2007 and above, these tools may include Building Blocks and a customized Quick Access Toolbar and/or Ribbon. In Word 2003 and earlier, they may also include custom menus and toolbars. In all versions, they may include macros, keyboard shortcuts, and AutoText entries. Some templates do contain boilerplate content: a template for a letter, for example, will perhaps have a letterhead on the first page, page numbering, and perhaps an automatic date field. In addition to custom styles for the parts of a letter (Inside Address, Reference Line, Salutation, Body Text, Closing, Signature, Copy List, and so on), it may have dummy paragraphs or text entry fields indicating where these parts go. In general, however, the content of a document is up to the writer. Users often ask for “templates” for very specific content, such as a letter protesting an unfair dismissal or a letter to customers of a business thanking them for their patronage. You may actually find such samples among those available at Office.com. Viewed from a layout perspective, however, such letters are just letters. They can be created using a generic letter template or from scratch, assuming the writer knows how to write a letter. What the user is really looking for is a model or sample document that would provide suggested wording for such a letter. That is not what a “template” is in Word. On the other hand, users’ needs sometimes are more related to layout: “a Request for Proposal template to hire a building designer for a residence” or “a restaurant evaluation sheet template” or “a flyer template for an AA – Al-Anon Event.” In such cases, finding a readymade template is unlikely, though it may be possible to find a generic template that can be adapted. In the last analysis, however, the user is still looking for a model or sample rather than a template—just something to copy or build on; even a sample document would suffice. The whole point of a Word template is to create a format that can be used over and over again. Accordingly, it is unnecessary and a waste of time to create a template for a single-use document. Creating a template for letters makes sense; creating a template for a letter protesting one’s unfair dismissal does not. A template for flyers for AA – Al-Anon events may make sense if the events are frequent and the flyers should be consistent in design; if the event is a one-off, a document will suffice. So, before you set out to create a template, you should ask yourself whether it is something you would use repeatedly. Often this realization comes after you’ve recreated the same document format numerous times, changing margins, modifying styles, changing fonts. It occurs to you that you could save time in the creation of such documents if you didn’t have to make all these changes. That’s when you need a template. True story: In 2005, I was invited to give a at a writers’ workshop. The organizer of the workshop, a client of mine who was a prolific and award-winning writer of short stories, came up to me before my presentation and showed me a laminated sheet on which he had recorded all the settings he made when starting a new short-story document. I wish I had paid more attention and could remember what they were, but there was a full page of them, starting with changing the margins, the font style and size, paragraph spacing and indents, etc. My first reaction was that his top margin seemed small (I suspect he was putting his header in the document body), but then I came to my senses and asked him why in the world he hadn’t just created a template to incorporate all these settings! (He later did just that and thanked me for the suggestion.) In addition to providing one-click access to a combination of document, paragraph, and font formatting, there are advantages to true templates that cannot be achieved with documents used as templates. Although it is now possible to save macros, a customized Quick Access Toolbar (toolbars and menus in earlier versions), and keyboard shortcuts in documents, Building Blocks (AutoText entries in earlier versions) must still be saved in templates. And the New dialog actually makes it easier to access templates than to search for documents. The primary benefit of a template over a reused document, however, is that the default action for a template (if you double-click on it in a Windows Explorer window) is to create a new document (you actually have to go to some trouble to open the template for editing). When you use a document as a “template,” you must remember to Save As to protect the original; if you forget and just save the modified document, you’ve spoiled your “template.” If you create a specific kind of document (such as letters) almost exclusively, your first impulse may be to just make the necessary changes to the Normal template, so that you get a document formatted the way you want when you click the New button. This can be a solution up to a point, but please note the caveats expressed in “.” In particular, it is not a good idea to add a header or footer to the Normal template because this will affect the layout of labels. For this reason it is usually a good idea to leave the Normal template alone (a lot of your settings, such as shortcut key assignments and—in previous versions—custom toolbars, will be stored there anyway, so that they are available to all templates) and make a custom template for each specific task you routinely do. There are basically two ways to create a template. Which one you choose will depend on how you come to the process of creation: • You can base a template on an existing document. If you have a document that has formatting you want to reuse in another document, you can save the document as a template. • You can start from scratch. If you want to start with a clean file, designing formatting for the document and its styles before ever creating a document, you will start with a template file (.dot,.dotx, or.dotm). The following sections will describe how to do either of these in various versions of Word. For additional information about where templates are stored and ways of accessing them see “.” Author Charles Kenyon has investigated, far more thoroughly than I have the patience to do, all the ins and outs of template storage in succeeding versions of Word. All of the screen shots were taken on my own computer, where I have four versions of Word installed. In order to keep these versions separate and relatively happy, I have templates stored in four separate folders: the default Templates folder for Word 2003 and folders named Word 2007 Templates, Word 2010 Templates, and Word 2013 Templates for the respective applications. I also have numerous subfolders of templates, not to mention subfolders of documents, and many of those, as well as my Favorites folders, are on view in many of the screen shots below. Naturally, your dialogs will not look exactly the same, but I have tried to give a decent impression of what you will see if you have file extensions and the Folders pane displayed. With some minor exceptions, these instructions also apply to Word 2000 and 2002 (yes, some users still have those versions!). Start with an existing document You have a document that contains the formatting you want to reuse in subsequent documents. • On the File menu, click Save As • In the Save As dialog, type a name for your template, such as “Business Letter” or “Personal Letter” or “Appraisal Report.” • In the “Save as type” dropdown, choose Document Template (.dot). Word will automatically change the save location to the folder where templates are stored. If you have not changed the folder for “User templates” on the File Locations tab of Tools| Options, this will be the Templates folder, which is where the Normal template is also stored. If you installed the built-in templates when you installed Word, there will be several subfolders in the Templates folder, representing the tabs in the New or Templates dialog. One of these will be Letters; if you’ve created a, you may want to save it in that folder. Word 2003 Save As dialog Even before you save the document as a template, you can make many customizations and save them in it. For example, in addition to styles, you can have custom toolbars and keyboard shortcuts, menu and toolbar customizations, macros, etc. After you have saved the document as a template, you can also store AutoText entries in it. Start from scratch • On the File menu, click New. By default, this will open the time-wasting New Document task pane (we’ll talk more about that later). • In the pane, under Templates, click On my computer This will open the Templates dialog (which is just the New dialog under an alias) with Blank Document selected. Word 2003 Templates dialog • Unless you have a good reason for selecting another template, it will be best to base your template on the Normal template (which is represented by Blank Document), so all you have to do is select the radio button for Template instead of Document under Create New and click OK. • This will open a file that looks just like a blank document except that the title bar will say “Template1” instead of “Document1.” • Make the desired changes to the formatting of styles, header and/or footer, toolbars, menus, keyboard shortcuts, macros, AutoText—whatever you want available when you create a document based on the template. • When you go to save the template, you’ll see that (as described above), Word defaults to the folder where templates are stored. As described above, there may also be subfolders where you may want to save your template. Using your new template To use your new template, you will need to select it in the New dialog or the New Document task pane. I said above that the New Document task pane is a time-waster. Although your new template may appear (for a while, at least) under “Recently used templates,” you still need two mouse clicks (or Alt+F, N) to open the task pane and then another click to choose your template or, worse still, click On my computer to get to the Templates dialog. Here’s how to get to that dialog in one click (for a more complete discussion of shortcuts to the New dialog, see of Charles Kenyon’s article on File New Variations): • Open Tools| Customize (or just double-click on the unused part of a menu to open it). • On the Commands tab, you’ll find New at the top of the Commands list in the File category. Select it and drag it to your Standard toolbar. Word 2003 Customize dialog showing New. Button You may already have a button on the Standard toolbar labeled New that opens a new Blank Document (this button does not appear on the Standard toolbar by default, but you may have added it from the Add or Remove Buttons dropdown, where it is listed as New Blank Document). The ScreenTip of the New button will also be New. To prevent confusion, you can: • Place the two New buttons on opposite ends of the toolbar, or • Remove the existing button by dragging it off the toolbar. You can still open a new Blank Document by pressing Ctrl+N or by selecting it in the New dialog, or • Differentiate the icon for the New button in one of three ways: • With the Customize dialog open, right-click on the New button and type a new name for it (such as New Dialog or File New) in the box beside Name: (note that the current name is shown as New., but this is misleading, as the button’s ScreenTip is actually just New). Customize dialog right-click menu in Word 2003 showing button name • Alternatively, with the Customize dialog open, right-click on the New button and choose Change Button Image, then select one from the flyout palette. Customize dialog right click menu in Word 2003 showing Change Button Image flyout palette • Or, with the Customize dialog open, right-click on the New button and choose Edit Button Image, which opens the Button Editor, whose use is pretty intuitive (not to mention fun). Button Editor in Word 2003 Note: Technical information for those who like that kind of thing: The New button runs the FileNew command, which opens the New dialog. The New button runs the FileNewDefault command, which creates a new Blank Document. The command that opens the New Document task pane (the New command that is on the File menu by default) is FileNewContext. Start with an existing document You have a document that contains the formatting you want to reuse in subsequent documents. • Click the Office Button and choose Save As > Word Template from the menu that opens. Word 2007 Office Button menu showing Save As| Template • In the Save As dialog, type a name for your document, such as “Business Letter” or “Personal Letter” or “Appraisal Report.” Save As dialog in Word 2007 • By default Word will save your template as a.dotx ( Word Template) file. Important Note: If your template will contain macros, click to open the Save as type dropdown and choose Word Macro-Enabled Template (*.dotm). Warning: If the document you want to save as a template already contains macros, it will have been saved as a Word Macro-Enabled Document (*.docm). Despite this, when you go to save it as a template, Word will default to the.dotx format, which will not preserve your macros. You must explicitly choose the.dotm format as described above. Unlike Word 2003, Word 2007 will not automatically change the save location to the folder where templates are stored; you must navigate to this folder manually (note that the screen shot above shows the Word Documents folder). To find the location of this folder, go to Office Button| Word Options| Advanced. At the bottom of this tab, click File Locations. And look at the path given for “User templates.” If you haven’t changed it, this will be the Templates folder, which is where the Normal template is also stored. You won’t be able to see the full path to this folder, but you can get it this way: • Click Modify • In the Modify Location dialog, click the arrow beside the address bar, which will cause the full path to be displayed. Modify Location dialog in Word 2007 • Press Ctrl+C to copy the path; you can then use Ctrl+V to paste it into the address bar in the Save As dialog. • You may want to add this location to the Favorites list in the dialog (as shown in the Save As dialog above), which makes it available in any Windows Explorer dialog (such as Word’s Open dialog). Even before you save the document as a template, you can make many customizations and save them in it. For example, in addition to styles, you can have a custom Quick Access Toolbar and keyboard shortcuts, macros (if it is a.docm), etc. After you have saved the document as a template, you can also store Building Blocks and AutoText entries in it. Start from scratch You may at first believe that there is no way to create a new template from scratch. When you click the Office Button and then New, you are not offered a choice of document or template, and the New Document window that opens seems to offer only the option of creating a new document based on an existing template ( New from existing creates a new document based on an existing document). There is a way: If you click on My templates, you will get the legacy New dialog with Blank Document selected, but there is a more efficient way to open this dialog: • Right-click on the Quick Access Toolbar and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar • In the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar and keyboard shortcuts dialog, under Choose commands from, select Commands Not in the Ribbon. • Scroll down to New Document or Template, select it, and click Add» to add it to the QAT. • Click OK to close the dialog. Customize the Quick Access Toolbar dialog in Word 2007 If you already have the New button (which opens the New Document window) or the New Blank Document button (which creates a new blank document), you will notice that the button icon is the same for all three (the ToolTip you get when you hover the mouse over them is different, however). Since Word 2007 doesn’t allow you to customize button images, you may want to space these apart on your QAT so you can distinguish them. For a more complete discussion of shortcuts to the New dialog, see of Charles Kenyon’s article on File New Variations. • Once you have added the New Document or Template button to your QAT, click on it to open the New dialog. New dialog in Word 2007 • Unless you have a good reason for selecting another template, it will be best to base your template on the Normal template (which is represented by Blank Document), so all you have to do is select the radio button for Template instead of Document under Create New and click OK. • This will open a file that looks just like a blank document except that the title bar will say “Template1” instead of “Document1.” • Make the desired changes to the formatting of styles, header and/or footer, Quick Access Toolbar, keyboard shortcuts, macros, Building Blocks/AutoText—whatever you want available when you create a document based on the template. When you go to save the template, you’ll see that Word defaults to the folder where templates are stored. This is one good reason for starting from scratch with a template instead of a document. Using your new template If you click New on the Office Button menu, you may see your template under Recently Used Templates in the New Document dialog. If not, you can click My templates to open the classic New dialog. But there is an easier way: • If you have already added the New Document or Template button to your Quick Access Toolbar, click that button to get to the New dialog, and double-click the template you saved to create a new document based on it. New dialog in Word 2007 showing Business Letter • If you created your template based on an existing document, see the instructions in “Start from scratch” to add a button for the New Document or Template dialog to your Quick Access Toolbar. Click that button to get to the New dialog, and double-click the template you saved to create a new document based on it. If you create many templates, you may want to categorize them. You can do this by creating subfolders in the Templates folder. The root folder appears as the default General tab in the New dialog, and each subfolder (such as Letters or Reports) will appear as another tab. Important Note: If you open the New dialog from the My templates link in the Office Button| New dialog, you will see only the templates and folders you have created. Word’s built-in templates are accessible from the Installed Templates link. If you open the New dialog using the New Document or Template button you have added, you will see both your personal and Word’s installed templates in the same dialog. The installed templates are on tabs labeled Faxes, Letters, Other Documents, Reports, and Resumes. If you create a subfolder with the same name as one of these tabs, such as Letters, and store your template there, it will be displayed along with Word’s templates in this dialog. You can distinguish your templates because, unlike Word’s native templates, they will display the.dotx or.dotm file extension (if you have file extensions displayed in Windows, which is recommended). Word 2007 New dialog showing Letters tab Start with an existing document You have a document that contains the formatting you want to reuse in subsequent documents. • Click the File tab to open the Backstage. • Click Save As in the left panel. • In the Save As dialog, type a name for your document, such as “Business Letter” or “Personal Letter” or “Appraisal Report.” • In the “Save as type” dropdown, choose Word Template (.dotx). Word 2010 Save As dialog (template) Important Note: If your template will contain macros, instead choose Word Macro-Enabled Template (*.dotm). Warning: If the document you want to save as a template already contains macros, it will have been saved as a Word Macro-Enabled Document (*.docm). Despite this, when you go to save it as a template, Word will default to the.dotx format, which will not preserve your macros. Unlike Word 2003, Word 2010 will not automatically change the save location to the folder where templates are stored; you must navigate to this folder manually. To find the location of this folder, go to File| Options| Advanced. At the bottom of this tab, click File Locations. And look at the path given for “User templates.” If you haven’t changed it, this will be the Templates folder, which is where the Normal template is also stored. You won’t be able to see the full path to this folder, but you can get it this way: • Click Modify • In the Modify Location dialog, click the arrow beside the address bar, which will cause the full path to be displayed. Word 2010 Modify Location dialog • Press Ctrl+C to copy the path; you can then use Ctrl+V to paste it into the address bar in the Save As dialog. • You may want to add this location to the Favorites list in the dialog, which makes it available in any Windows Explorer dialog (such as Word’s Open dialog). Alternatively, you could pin it to the Recent Places list on the Recent tab of the Backstage (which is opened by the File tab). Even before you save the document as a template, you can make many customizations and save them in it. For example, in addition to styles, you can have a custom Quick Access Toolbar and keyboard shortcuts, macros (if it is a.docm), etc. After you have saved the document as a template, you can also store Building Blocks and AutoText entries in it. Start from scratch You may at first believe that there is no way to create a new template from scratch. When you click the File tab and then New, you are offered only a choice of Available Templates, along with the option of creating a new document based on an existing template ( New from existing creates a new document based on an existing document). There is a way: If you click on My templates. You will get the legacy New dialog (here called Personal Templates) with Blank Document selected, but there is an easier way to get to that dialog. • Right-click on the Quick Access Toolbar and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar • In the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar dialog, under Choose commands from, select Commands Not in the Ribbon. • Scroll down to New Document or Template, select it, and click Add» to add it to the QAT. • Click OK to close the dialog. Word 2010 Customize QAT dialog If you already have the New button (which opens the New Document window) or the New Blank Document button (which creates a new blank document), you will notice that the button icon is the same for all three (the ToolTip you get when you hover the mouse over them is different, however). Since Word 2010 doesn’t allow you to customize button images, you may want to space these apart on your QAT so you can distinguish them. For a more complete discussion of shortcuts to the New dialog, see of Charles Kenyon’s article on File New Variations. Word 2010 New dialog • Unless you have a good reason for selecting another template, it will be best to base your template on the Normal template (which is represented by Blank Document), so all you have to do is select the radio button for Template instead of Document under Create New and click OK. • This will open a file that looks just like a blank document except that the title bar will say “Template1” instead of “Document1.” • Make the desired changes to the formatting of styles, header and/or footer, Quick Access Toolbar, keyboard shortcuts, macros, Building Blocks/AutoText—whatever you want available when you create a document based on the template. When you go to save the template, you’ll see that Word does default to the folder where templates are stored. This is one good reason for starting from scratch with a template instead of a document. Word 2010 Save As dialog defaulting to Templates folder Using your new template If you open the New tab of the Backstage, you will see that, even if you have used it recently, your template will not be in the Available Templates window; you would have to click Recent templates or select My templates to get to the legacy New dialog. Fortunately, there is an easier way! • If you have already added the New Document or Template button to your Quick Access Toolbar, click that button to get to the New dialog, and double-click the template you saved to create a new document based on it. • If you created your template based on an existing document, see the instructions in “Start from scratch” to add a button for the New Document or Template dialog to your Quick Access Toolbar. Click that button to get to the New dialog, and double-click the template you saved to create a new document based on it. Word 2010 New dialog showing Business Letter template If you create many templates, you may want to categorize them. You can do this by creating subfolders in the Templates folder. The root folder appears as the default Personal Templates tab of the New dialog, and each subfolder (such as Letters or Reports) will appear as another tab. Important Note: If you open the New dialog from the My templates link in the File| New dialog, you will see only the templates and folders you have created. Word’s built-in templates are accessible from the Sample Templates link. If you open the New dialog using the New Document or Template button you have added, you will see both your personal and Word’s installed templates in the same dialog. The installed templates are on tabs labeled Faxes, Letters, Other Documents, Reports, and Resumes. If you create a subfolder with the same name as one of these tabs, such as Letters, and store your template there, it will be displayed along with Word’s templates in this dialog. You can distinguish your templates because, unlike Word’s native templates, they will display the.dotx or.dotm file extension (if you have file extensions displayed in Windows, which is recommended). Word 2010 New dialog showing Letters tab Start with an existing document You have a document that contains the formatting you want to reuse in subsequent documents. • Click the File tab to open the Backstage. • Click Save As in the left panel. • Click Browse to open the Save As dialog. • In the Save As dialog, type a name for your document, such as “Business Letter” or “Personal Letter” or “Appraisal Report.” • In the “Save as type” dropdown, choose Word Template (.dotx). Word 2013 Save As dialog for a template (.dotx) Important Note: If your template will contain macros, instead choose Word Macro-Enabled Template (*.dotm). Warning: If the document you want to save as a template already contains macros, it will have been saved as a Word Macro-Enabled Document (*.docm). Despite this, when you go to save it as a template, Word will default to the.dotx format, which will not preserve your macros. • Word 2013 or 2016 will automatically change the save location to the folder where templates are stored. By default, however, this will be Custom Office Templates folder, which is different from the Templates folder where the Normal template is stored. For more on this, see the next section. Even before you save the document as a template, you can make many customizations and save them in it. For example, in addition to styles, you can have a custom Quick Access Toolbar and keyboard shortcuts, macros (if it is a.docm), etc. After you have saved the document as a template, you can also store Building Blocks and AutoText entries in it. Start from scratch Recent versions of Word seem to be determined to discourage users from even using their own templates, much less creating one from scratch. Probably the easiest way to create one in Word 2013 or 2016 is to start with a Blank Document based on the Normal template and save it as a template as described above, then add the desired elements. If you really want to start with a template, you will have to get access to the classic New dialog. Here’s how: • Right-click on the Quick Access Toolbar and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar • In the Customize the Quick Access Toolbar dialog, under Choose commands from, select Commands Not in the Ribbon. • Scroll down to New Document or Template, select it, and click Add» to add it to the QAT. Word 2013 Customize QAT dialog If you already have the New button (which opens the New Document window) or the New Blank Document button (which creates a new blank document), you will notice that the button icon is the same for all three. Since Word 2013 and 2016 don’t allow you to customize button images, you may want to space these apart on your QAT so you can distinguish them (the tooltips will be different). For a more complete discussion of shortcuts to the New dialog, see of Charles Kenyon’s article on File New Variations. Once you have access to the New Document or Template dialog: • Click on the New Document or Template button, which will open the New dialog with Blank Document selected. Word 2013 New dialog • Unless you have a good reason for selecting another template, it will be best to base your template on the Normal template (which is represented by Blank Document), so all you have to do is select the radio button for Template instead of Document under Create New and click OK. • This will open a file that looks just like a blank document except that the title bar will say “Template1” instead of “Document1.” • Make the desired changes to the formatting of styles, header and/or footer, Quick Access Toolbar, keyboard shortcuts, macros, Building Blocks/AutoText—whatever you want available when you create a document based on the template. When you go to save the template, you’ll see that Word defaults to the folder where templates are stored. By default, however, this will be the Custom Office Templates folder, which is different from the Templates folder where the Normal template is stored. The Templates folder (with its subfolders) is the one that will be displayed by the New Document or Template dialog. To clarify: As described in, when you select the New tab in the Backstage, you will see a selection of templates from Office Online. If you have defined a “Default personal templates location,” these templates will be described as “Featured,” and there will also be a button for “Personal.” If you click on Personal, you will see the templates you saved in the “Default personal templates location” (which is the Custom Office Templates folder by default). If you open the New Document or Template dialog, however, it will not show templates that are saved in the Custom Office Templates folder. It will display templates (including Normal.dotm) that are stored in the folder designated for “User templates,” which is also where the Normal template is stored. In order to be able to save your new template in the default save location and find it again using the New Document or Template dialog, you will need to change the folder where Word saves your templates to make it the same as the folder designated for “User templates.” • To see the current save location, go to File| Options| Save and look at the “Default personal templates location.” Unless you have modified it, it will be C: Users. How to Install a Template Article contributed by NOTE: This article is due for revision. While most of the content remains valid, you will find some of it out of date (especially as regards Word 2004). In a strict technical sense you do not have to 'install' Word templates, because they will work from anywhere on your hard disk. However, if you do not place them in the correct folder, the security warnings will make your life a misery, and you will continually have to navigate to the template when you want to use items from it. This article assumes you have read the whole of the Word Help topic 'About Templates'. In this context, a Template and an Add-in are often the same thing. However, application developers can produce Add-ins which are compiled programs, not templates. Many third-party applications such as scanner or fax applications include these. If you have a template that contains macros or other customizations such as toolbars, it works better from some locations than others. To use a template, Word must load it. For more information, read the Word Help topic 'About loading and unloading templates and add-in programs'. This article contains four procedures: • • • • Word contains the Visual Basic for Applications scripting language (VBA). VBA is a very powerful interpreted or compiled scripting language similar to AppleScript. Unfortunately, with this power comes the ability to do great damage; it is this language that the majority of the viruses you hear about are written in. So Word has now acquired some fairly tough protection measures to avoid attacks from within. These measures make it very difficult to use templates unless they are in a 'trusted' location. There are two trusted locations; your Word User Templates folder, and your Word Startup folder. By default, your User Templates folder is in /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Templates. By default, your Startup folder is in /Applications/Microsoft Office X/Office/Startup/Word. These locations were a convenient place for Microsoft to install templates, because it knows that if it can get permission to install the application, it has permission to write to this location. However, experienced users don't leave them there for long; it would be a bit like putting a sign on the front of your house saying 'The safe is in the upstairs front bedroom.' Not only does any user on your computer have access to these locations, but all virus writers looking to infect you can guess where your jewelry box is. Your templates are a very valuable resource (or they soon will be.). Any long-term power user of Word has hundreds or thousands of hours of development locked up in their templates. We suggest that you move your Templates folder, pronto. Your Microsoft User Data folder would be a good place for it: not only does this mean that other users cannot see it, let alone write to it, but you will already be backing up your MUD folder as part of your daily backup, since that's where all your mail is if you are using Entourage. (You are backing it up, aren't you? You're not, huh? Look, can we have a little chat? There are only two certainties in life: death, and computer failure (you can evade taxes.). Sometime, your computer is going to fail. But it may not have to. One of the most common causes of computer data loss is having your computer walk out of the door under the arm of some thief. You may be able to explain that to your boss, but can you stare down your six-year-old whose game you just lost? Can you?) Finding Your Templates Folder The easiest way to find your Templates folder is to ask Word. Caution: Don t look for it with Sherlock. To begin with, the name may not be Templates ; it can be anything you like. Furthermore, Sherlock can only tell you that it has found a template folder; it can not tell you whether or not this is the one that Word is using. • Go to Word>Preferences>File Locations. • You will see a list of locations. The three recognized locations for templates are User Templates, Workgroup Templates, and Startup (note: these are just the location identifiers: the folders they point to may be named anything you like). • The trusted locations are User Templates and Startup. Click Modify to read the whole path name (you will now find out whether a previous user has renamed the folder from its default name of Templates ). Make sure you do not change this entry. Click Cancel. Note: It s User Templates location but Templates folder; Workgroup Templates location, but the folder can be any name you like; Startup location, and usually, Startup folder. Now check carefully to make sure I have got these write rite whatever. The three locations each have a different purpose: • The User Templates folder is a trusted location. Templates in this location do not trigger the Macro Security Warning. • The Workgroup Templates folder path is often blank. Set this to the location of your company or workgroup templates that you want to share with others. • The Startup path is where you place templates and Add-ins you want Word to load every time it starts. It is also a trusted location. You can leave the Workgroup Templates entry blank if you have no use for it. Some users use it as a place to store the templates they do not intend to change. If you do place it in a shared location, make sure that the location is read-only to everyone, to prevent inadvertent changes. You should assign editing rights the Workgroup Templates folder to only one user. If that user is you, request a second User ID for this purpose only. That will prevent you from 'Ooops!' Moving Your Templates Folder You can place your Templates folder anywhere you like. Many users like to keep it on a different partition from the operating system, so that when things go wrong and you have to re-install, you do not have to worry about moving your template folder. If you are on a multi-user machine, make sure you place your Templates folder in a place that other users cannot access. Any place in your user home directory would be fine; for consistency it should be in your Library structure, but for ease of use and backup many people find it more convenient to put it in their Microsoft User Data folder. It is best not to put your Templates folder on a network drive; if the network becomes disconnected or the file server drops, Word will hang. Contractors sometimes keep theirs on a removable drive. This is OK if the drive is fast enough; Word makes fairly frequent accesses to some templates. They will not fit on a floppy disk; the disk runs out of space and your templates get corrupted. So do not try it! To move any of the template folders you must have all Office applications quit (basically to ensure that the Project Gallery is not running, since this is shared between all Office applications). • Select the folder you want to move (for example, the Templates folder) in Finder and drag it where you want it. You 'can' rename it if you want to, but you may prefer not to. If you do rename standard folders such as this, you can make your system very difficult for others to maintain. On the other hand, if you think you are likely to be attacked by a virus writer clever enough to perform a search for the folder, you should rename it. • It is now necessary to tell Word where you have hidden the templates. Start Word and immediately go to Word>Preferences>File Locations. • Change the User Templates location (or the appropriate location if you moved a different folder) to where you just placed your templates folder. • Quit Word to force it to save the changes you just made. Word may prompt you to save changes to your Normal template: your answer must be ' NO'. While you were changing the location, Word created a new Normal Template. It is now trying to save it; if it succeeds, it will wipe out your real Normal Template. If you do not get to the File Locations preference soon enough, there is a danger that Word will re-create the folder back where it used to be (as soon as it tries to save a template, which is about five minutes after it starts). You may use Symbolic Links to Office X resources, but do not use aliases. For more information, see symlink(7) (and if you do not know how to find that, please don't try this at home.). Installing a Template To install a template, you simply drag its file to the appropriate folder. You can load and use a template from any folder. However, if the template contains macros or customizations (which is usually the reason you wanted it) you will be nagged to death by the Macro Security Warning unless you put the template in the folder indicated by your User Templates location. Most users gather many customized templates after some years of use. You can add folders to your Templates folder to organize your templates. Some are already there: you can add templates for your various purposes to these. Folders within your Templates folder are also trusted locations. Within your Templates folder, there is a folder named My Templates. This is where Word saves your customized copies of its standard templates. Whenever you customize a standard Word template, it will offer to save the result here. It's not a bad place to put your other templates. It is not a good idea to rename any of the standard folders you find in the Templates folder. Yes, I know we said you 'can' re-name these folders to any name you like; and many of us do. Most of the time you will get away with it. The rest of the time, you may end up with inexplicable crashes or hangs when various components cannot find their templates. When you look in Project Gallery, each folder in the Templates folder appears as an expandable list. To avoid confusion, note that folders which you create will not appear at all in the Project Gallery unless they already contain a template. Installing an Add-in To install a template or add-in permanently, place it in your Startup folder. Any items you place in the Startup folder will load automatically every time Word starts, and will be available globally to all documents open in Word. To install a template or add-in temporarily, place it anywhere but your Startup folder. The item will then be unloaded when Word quits, and it will not be loaded again unless you load it manually. Do this with large or resource-hungry items you do not use often (in other words: If Word gets too slow, unload some of those add-ins!) Setting Macro Security Word v.X does not have adjustable macro security. It is always on and always set to 'Medium.'
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March 2018
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