Template Basics in Microsoft Word
by Charles Kyle Kenyon, Esq.
There are no promises that this chapter is of the same quality or depth as the other chapters of this guide. That is because it was
written by a single author not working with Microsoft and not subject to
peer review. You will find an earlier version this chapter on the
Microsoft site. Users
of Word 2007 and 2010 may want to look at this note.
Last updated
Thursday 02 May 2013.
Comments are welcome.
Introduction. Templates are a special type of Word document that can hold text,
styles, macros, keyboard shortcuts, custom toolbars and AutoText entries. A document created using a template
will have access to all of these features and a large part of your job
in creating a new document will be done for you if your templates are
well thought out. You don't need to use all (or even any) of these features for
templates to help you and those with whom you work.
Even though the title of this chapter is "Template Basics,"
this is an advanced-level tutorial and it is recommended that you not
try anything in here until after you have reviewed the contents of at
least the chapters:
You don't have to understand everything in those chapters to build a
useful template, but it will help for you to at least have skimmed
through so that you will know some of the pitfalls and advantages of
different methods.
While this is about Word 97-2003, the content is valid for
understanding use of templates in later versions as well.
What You Will Learn
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
Additional Written and Web Resources
 
(this
guide table of contents) ------- (MS
Word New Users FAQ)
Note about Word 2007 and Word 2010
Almost all of this chapter applies to these later versions of Word. The
filename extensions are different in that they will be ".dotx" and "dotm."
File locations for templates with later versions of Windows and Word are
more confused,
usually in a user profile. A template remains a special
kind of Word document that will create a new document when you
double-click on it from Windows rather than opening. These later
versions of Word do not have menus except through add-ins. See
Ribbon in Word 2007 and
2010 for more information on the Ribbon interface.
Templates - User Templates, Workgroup Templates & Global
Templates
The templates covered in this chapter are a special type of Word document. They hold
components for other documents, especially text, Autotext, Macros &
Toolbars. They also hold style definitions. Finally, they hold additional
modifications to your user interface such as keyboard shortcuts and changes to
the built-in menus and toolbars.
When you save a document as a
template Word will attach the three-letter DOS extension of
".dot" to the end of the name instead of ".doc" but it is
not the extension that makes it a template. Merely changing the name either way
will not change a document into a template or a template into a
document (although doing so will confuse you and other users). Although
Windows will think that such a misnamed file is a document, or template,
depending on the extension, Word knows the difference. You
can make a document into a template from within Word using Save As under the
File menu. With Word versions prior to Word 2002, you can't directly change a template into a document. You can
create a new document based upon a template and save that document . . . as a
document. (In Word 2002+ when you use "Save As" to save a template as a
document, Word will strip out all AutoText and will warn you that this is
happening.) In Word 2007 and later the filename extensions are different:
dotx and dotmx.
Although this chapter is titled "Template Basics" it does not
tell you how to create a useful document template. For me to attempt to do
that would be pointless. Anything that I would say to you can be found in How
to Create
a Template Part 2 by John McGhie. I urge you to read that work, now. This chapter,
though, does tell you things about templates that are not covered in that
work.
If you are creating a document template, I urge you to pay
close attention to styles. In constructing or editing a template:
"Always
change formatting with Format>Style
.
I may sometimes forget to say so, in which case please remember it for
me! ...[R]emember: for most
users, the only thing they can ever access in a template is the styles.
If the settings are not in the styles, they’re pointless."
John McGhie, How to Create a Template, Part 2
I
would go further and say template formatting done directly (outside of styles)
is wicked or cruel. It will confuse the user of your template and make
life more difficult for him or her. If you are the user of your
template, I guess foolish and self-defeating would be a better
description than wicked or cruel. None of these adjectives are ones
that I use often or lightly. I think they are appropriate in this situation.
Word 2010 makes use of styles even easier and more important. See
Why Use Styles - part of Lynda.com Video tutorials on Word and
Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word.
|
 |
NOTE about hiding things from yourself.
Both Word and Windows like to hide things from you feeling that
too much information tends to confuse. You may agree with this
philosophy or not. However, this chapter is written expecting that
you can see some of this hidden information. Specifically:
 | Filename Extensions (Mac users don't need to worry about
this.) |
If you are in an Explorer window that has Word documents in
it, do the names show the three-letter extension
".doc?" If not, to see these you need to go to the
menu: View => Folder Options => Views (tab).
Uncheck the selection that says something like "Hide
filename extensions for known file types" and click on OK
or CLOSE.
For more see this
knowledgebase article.
| Paragraph marks and section marks |
These non-printing characters are at the heart of word
formatting. If you can't see them, your formatting will be very
hard to figure out. This is one part of the Word equivalent to
Word Perfect's "reveal codes." The default is to not
show these characters because the marketing people at Microsoft
thought it would scare you to have any clue as to what was going
on in your document. (my guess)
 When you are working on formatting a
document you need to see them. The Show/Hide toolbar button
(Standard Toolbar, between Document Map button and Zoom
drop-down) for this has a
paragraph mark (pillcrow) on it. You can also set this under
Tools => Options => View (tab).
| You can change these back later. Most advanced
computer users leave these displayed to save time because not
seeing these confuses them. |
|
Creating a document from a document template - the attached template.
When you select New under the File menu, you are shown
templates from which you can choose. There are also Tabs of more available
selections. (And if there isn't room for all of the tabs, there will be one
that simply says "More" and gives you access to the others.) When
you pick a template and create a new document based on that template, the
template remains "attached" to the document.
Any text that is in the template will be the start of your new document.
All styles
in the template used in the document (whether in the template's text or in
text that you type or insert) become defined in the document and will stay with the document
even if the attachment is later broken. If the template's style definition is
changed after it is used in the document, the style as used in an existing
document will not change unless the template is reattached or the style is
otherwise copied into the document again. (See below for more on attaching a
template to an existing document.)
Autotext entries, Macros, Keyboard customizations and
Toolbars in the template are
available to the document so long as the document remains attached to the
template, but are not normally transferred into the document. (Documents
cannot hold Autotext entries but can have macros and toolbars.)
|
|
Rant about creating Templates from (flawed) documents
If you are going to share your templates with others, or
simply plan on using them to make a number of documents try to
plan and structure them with care. Avoid making a template from
any documents converted from a different word processing program
or even a much earlier version of Word. Because there is no way
to translate feature-for-feature a complex document structure
from one program to another, these conversions are prone to
document corruption. In Word, even documents created in the
current version of Word can cause problems if they have
automatically numbered paragraphs.
The basic idea of templates is to give you or someone else a
boost in creating a new document. If your template is full of
errors, those errors will replicate themselves ad infinitum!
That isn't something that you need. It isn't an example that you
want to set.
If what you really want to share is text, try sharing it as
an AutoText entry.
To clean up text from a converted document, save it in RTF
(or even text) format, reopen that and save it again as a
document file. Copy that text into a new document based on a
solid template. Save that new document as your template. Then
apply appropriate styles to all of the text in your document.
See below for more on use of styles
in templates. |
Changing the Attached Template
If you move the document to a different computer that
doesn't have the template, the attachment will be broken. If you move the
template into a different directory on your computer, the attachment will
probably be broken. If your template is on your server and you give the server
a different name, the attachment will be broken. You can change the
template attached to a document using
Tools => Templates and Add-Ins...
Attaching a different template gives you access to any
AutoText, macros, toolbars and keyboard customizations in the newly-attached
template. It does not give you any text from the newly-attached template. It
gives you access to styles in the newly-attached template but unless
you check the box "update styles" when you change the attached
template, any styles already in use in your document will not be
changed by attaching a new template. You will also not get any document
layout such as margins (although indents contained in styles will be
imported if the style is imported.
If you want the layout features or text from the new template
for your document, your best bet is to create a new document based on the new
template and then copy the contents of your old document into the new
document. Then close the old document and save your new document using the
same name. Note that your new document will use style definitions from the
template rather than from your old document.
A user's document templates are usually stored in a folder (usually on the user's
computer) and normally called "Templates." The normal.dot (or
normal.dotm) file will always be located in this folder. The default location of
this folder differs among the various versions of Word. Both the location and
the name can be changed by the user. If you ask Word to save a document as a
template, in Word 97-2003 this is the folder you will be taken to for that purpose. You can
see (and change) the location by using:
Tools => Options => File Locations (tab)
In this window, the folder is designated as the "User Templates
Folder."
In Word 2007 and 2010 the default location of the User Templates folder
is
"C:\Users\[your username]\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates"
This is still probably the best place to store any template unless you have
a reason to put it somewhere else. When it is here, it will be available
under File -> New to create a new document based on the template.
In the File Save and File Open dialogs this will show up as "Templates" in the
Favorites on the right.
You can save templates any place you want to, but if you
want them to show up in the File => New dialog box they must be in either the
User Templates Folder or the . . .
The Workgroup Templates Folder is a second top-level folder used to store
document templates. (As with the "User Templates Folder",
"Workgroup Templates Folder" is a description,
not a necessarily a name.) There is no default name or location for the Workgroup
Templates Folder. I call mine "Shared Templates" and it is kept on
the server in a folder that is mapped as the "G:\" drive by the
network. (And at home I use the assign command to map a folder in the same way
so that I can transfer work back and forth.)
This is set up the same way as the Templates folder except
that the folder is in a location accessible to all users (perhaps as
read-only). Like the Templates folder, folders established in the Workgroup
Templates folder will show up as Tabs when you use the File => New command
(Word 2000 requires at least one template in the folder for it to show up).
Once you have created a Workgroup Templates folder, you need to modify the
settings for each user in Word.
See
Workgroup Templates for how to set or modify this in the different
versions of Word.
This should be a different folder
than the User Templates folder even if on the same computer. For an example of
templates designed for placement in Workgroup Folders look at any of the Sample
Forms listed under additional materials. If it is on the same
computer as the User Templates folder, it should be in the folder that holds
the Templates folder, not in the Templates folder. This folder is normally the
Microsoft Office folder. The User Templates and Workgroup Templates folders (and their subfolders) are
the usual location for document templates. Note that these locations are set
initially by the Office Setup program (possibly using network administration
policies).
If there are form documents used throughout an office, department,
household, or business, they are best stored as Workgroup Templates.
Generally the workgroup templates are prepackaged templates for use by more
than one user, often company-wide. They can be used by an individual to
distinguish work templates from personal templates or finished templates
from development templates.
You can change the location of your user and/or workgroup templates
folders but doing so changes it for all Office programs, not just Word. There
is one kind of template, though, that should not be in either of these
templates folders, the global template...
Global templates - very different from document
templates
Global templates are one type of "Add-In" for
Word. Global templates are different from document templates, so different in
function that giving both the name template causes endless confusion. They are normally not "attached" to any document and normally
do not contribute text or styles to any document. They are excellent vehicles
for holding and sharing Autotext, Macros and Toolbars. You can make any
template global with:
Tools => Templates and Add-Ins ... => Add (button)
A file open dialog box will open showing the User Templates
folder's contents to choose from. You can, though, add a template that is
located elsewhere. Since they don't contribute text and are not used to start
new documents, global templates are probably best kept elsewhere (and not in
the Workgroup Templates folder either). If you add a template as an Add-In
this way, it will remain global until you restart Word. At that time, you
could add it again, if you wanted to do so. Or, you could make it load
automatically on startup by putting the template or a shortcut to the template
in the Word Startup folder. This is not the Startup programs folder in your Start menu,
but rather one specifically for Word. You can find (or change) its name and
location. See
Where Is (What Is) My Word Startup Folder?
Sharing a Global Template on a Network
If a global template is to be shared over a network, it should be
placed in a folder on the network server to which all users have file read
access. Each user's network login file should be set to copy the file to the
user's personal startup folder when the user logs onto the network if the network
version is newer than the user's version. That way you can update the template
without everyone having to be off from Word when you do it. (The personal
startup folder can be on a network drive or a local drive; my preference is
to use a local drive.)
See
Deploy your Word macros from a central location.
If you can't work with the login scripts or aren't worried about updating
the template you will probably
want to use shortcuts (Mac: aliases) to it in each user's Word Startup folder. That way, any
changes will automatically update everyone's Word. If it is your own and not
shared you can either put it in your Startup folder or keep it elsewhere and
use the shortcut to load it into Word.
Note that since Word 2000, Word has recognized two startup folders
to hold global templates. The first is the folder designated as the Word
startup folder under
Tools => Options => File Locations (tab).
The second is the Office Startup folder. Its location will vary depending
on both the Operating System and the version of Word (Office) being used. I
believe that the Word Startup folder can be different for each user in later
versions of Windows but that the Office startup folder will always be in the
Programs folder rather than in the user profile.
Examples of global templates can be found in the Legal
Toolbars, the Letterhead
System and the Gender Toolbars.
Information on moving / copying customizations to a global template can be
found in Moving (Sharing) Customizations in Microsoft Word.
Templates are one type of global Add-In, another is the com template
(since Word 2000). Those are beyond the scope of this article. In the
versions of Word that use both, you can find out which ones are installed
and
enable/disable them.
Temporary Global Templates
You can use a global template which is not loaded at startup, as well. Such
a template can share resources which are not used or needed in most of your
documents but are used by multiple templates and their documents. To do this,
you would include a VBA command in the AutoOpen and AutoNew macros of the
templates that need those resources. These would load your global as an Add-In
for that session of Word only. This way, when one of the documents needing
your template's resources is created or opened, the resources will be
available.
A good place to store such a global template might be in a folder in your
Word Startup folder named "Temp." That way it would not load at
startup, would be easy to find, and would not show up in your File =>
New... dialog box.
See also:
Organizing Your Macros by Beth Melton, MVP - includes organizing your
global templates
Normal.dot - the pan-global template - the granddaddy of all
document templates
Normal.dot is a special global document template created and used by Word.
It is a global template, and it is often used as a document template. Unlike
other global templates, Normal.dot must be in the User Templates
folder. Unlike other global templates, it
should not be shared. Also unlike other global templates, it shares styles
with all open documents (including other templates). When you click on the new
document button or go to File => New and select "Blank Document" what
you get is a document based on the Normal.dot template.
Normal.dot is usually
considered at least as personal as the locked bottom drawer of someone's desk.
People will be offended if you mess with their Normal.dot.
If Word is unable to find the Normal.dot file when started,
it will create one, using its defaults. The installation default for the
location of Normal.dot is the user templates folder. (In some language editions, Normal.dot
will have a slightly different name. Also, at least one virus renames
Normal.dot.) Except in unusual circumstances (multiple users on one computer
or multiple versions of Word) there should only be one copy of Normal.dot
(named Normal.dot) on a
computer.
See also How
to Automatically Load or Distribute a VBA Project (Microsoft Knowledge
Base)
Note that there is yet a fourth kind of template - not covered in this
chapter - is the numbering list template. For some unfathomable reason
Microsoft chose to use the term "template" for its numbering lists
as well. These are registry entries and not separate files, unlike the
templates addressed in this chapter. See the Numbering
chapter for more on these and Word's
Numbering Explained for much more.
The hierarchy of templates - not all are created equal!
So, we have attached (document) templates, global templates, and Normal.dot. What happens if there are conflicts (two Autotext entries or
macros with the same name, etc.)? They defer to each other according to rules
set by Microsoft (but not very easy to discover). You don't need to know this
hierarchy unless you start using the same names for macros, styles or autotext
entries in multiple templates loaded simultaneously. (This is a good
reason for using different names!) The order is:
| First, look in the document.
 | Any macros or styles in the
document will be used in preference to others if they have the same name. |
| Any toolbar or keyboard modifications
stored in the document will trump those elsewhere. (If the document and a
template both have toolbars with the same name, though, they will both be
available when the document is active.) |
|
| Next, check the attached template.
| Any macros or styles in the attached template will take priority over any except those of the same name in the
document. |
| Any styles changed in the template
after the document was created will be available as changed to the document by
updating styles. |
| Any autotext entries in the attached template will be
used in place of those with the same name in Normal.dot or
global templates. (Documents don't hold autotext entries.) |
| Any toolbar or keyboard modifications stored in the
attached template will trump those stored in Normal.dot or other
global templates. |
|
| Then check Normal.dot.
| All styles in Normal.dot are
available to all documents. Those styles already in the document will not
take on the attributes of styles in Normal.dot unless you update
them.
(Normal.dot has many more styles than are ever used in one document.) |
| All macros and autotext in Normal.dot are available to all
documents (unless preempted by an item of the same name in the
attached template or the document). Normal.dot is not the place to store shared macros. |
| Any toolbar or keyboard modifications stored in
Normal.dot are applied. In case of conflicts between Normal.dot
and other globals, Normal.dot wins. |
|
| Then, check other global templates and add-ins. Again,
these do not contribute styles to documents but all macros, toolbars and
Autotext entries are available from a global template.
| Styles in global templates are irrelevant to documents
(unless the style is incorporated in an autotext entry). |
| If there is a macro or autotext entry with the same name in Normal.dot, the attached template, or the document,
as the name in any other global template, the macro or autotext entry in the global template
will not be used (except for an AutoExec macro). |
| Any toolbar or keyboard modifications are applied
unless they conflict with something higher in the
hierarchy. |
| If there are multiple
global templates, they are checked in the order they appear in the
Templates and Add-Ins dialog box (with the
first found taking priority over those appearing lower on the
list). |
|
| Finally, check Word, itself. (The Word application stores its
styles, autotext entries, formatted autocorrect entries and toolbar
settings in Normal.dot but will recreate Normal.dot with default
settings if it can't find the Normal.dot file when started.)
| While the Word application does not contain Macros, as
such, it does contain Word commands (which show up as a category
in the Word macro list). These can be intercepted by macros
which have the same name as the command. (See Intercepting
Events Like Save and Print for more on this.) |
For more on this, you may want to look at How
Word Manages Conflicts or
Customizing Word: A Roadmap for the Professional Developer by
Bill Coan, MVP. |
How to get more (user defined) tabs when you
select “New” under the File menu.
When you go to save a template, as a template,
Word will take you to your user templates folder. If you store the
template there, it is under the General tab for new files. The
other tabs that you see under File => New are usually folders in the user
templates folder or the workgroup templates folder. If you want to add a tab, add a folder and
store a template there. (In Word 2000 the tab won’t show up
if there isn’t a template in the folder.)
Word 97 stores the templates that come with it
in these same folders. Word 2000 keeps its built-in templates elsewhere. If you want
your template to show up under the tab for “Letters &
Faxes” you need to create a folder with that title in your
user Templates folder. Just File=>Save As and select template as
your file type. Before you save the template, create a new folder
“Letters & Faxes” if one isn’t there, and then
open that folder and store your template there.
Word 2007 & 2010 New Templates Dialog
When you Choose File > New in Word 2007 or 2010 you get something like
the dialog windows below:
To get to the classic dialog you click on "My templates."
Want to get to your templates quickly? You can get the classic dialog by
customizing the QAT (Quick Action Toolbar). You want to add the command for
New Document or Template (classic FileNewDialog).
Tabs from a Workgroup Templates Folder
You can create organization folders in your workgroup templates
folder as well and store your workgroup templates there. These tabs will
then show up in the File => New dialog box for everyone who has
set that folder as the location for workgroup templates.
If you give your folders (that you create in the user or workgroup
templates folders) the same
name as Tabs already showing up under File => New, your templates will show up
under those Tabs. You can have folders with the same names in your personal
templates folder and your workgroup templates folder to take advantage of
this.
Note that the folder depth allowed for Templates folders is two levels: the Templates folder and one level of folders therein.
The diagram above shows five levels. You can put
subfolders in second-level folders but Word will ignore that structure and act
as if you put all the templates directly in the folder at the second level.
Word 97/98?
If your templates folder is structured as in the diagram
when you use File => New you will see four custom tabs and five custom
templates in your dialog box. If you click on the tab AA you will see no
templates.
Word 2000/2001?/XP?
If your templates folder is structured as in the diagram,
when you use File => New you will see three custom tabs and five custom
templates. No tab is shown for AA because it contains no templates.
Both
If you click on the tab AB, you will see templates 11, 12,
and 13 as options for starting your new document. If you click on the tab AD
you will not see any folders. You will see the following templates: 17, 18,
21, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36. All templates that are anywhere within folder AD,
including in subfolders, are displayed.
Tabs that show up under File => New that are not Folders
| The General tab (Word 97 and thereafter) |
The General tab displays all templates in the User templates folder, the
workgroup templates folder and one that says "Blank Document." You
won't find a "Blank Document.dot" if you look in any of the
templates folders, this is actually Normal.dot.
| The More tab (Word 97 and thereafter) |
 If you have more folders in your user templates folder and in your
workgroup templates folder than can fit on two rows of tabs in the
File => New dialog box, the last tab on the second row will be
"More." Clicking on this will give you all of the Folders in
your templates folders.
| Other tabs that are not Folders (Word 2000 and thereafter) |
In Word 2000 (and thereafter I expect) the templates that come with
Word show up under tabs in your Files => New dialog but if you look for
them, you can't find them. That is by design. Unless you have created
a folder that has the same name as one of these tabs, there will be no
folder with that name. If you do create such a folder (in either your
user templates folder or your workgroup templates folder) you will
have a folder that matches the tab. Any templates that you put into
that folder will show up under the tab in the File => New dialog. (The
templates under that tab that come with Word, though will still not be
in the folder.)
Removing Tabs from the File => New
dialog
First, read the section above on Adding Tabs so
that you have an understanding of how templates and the templates'
folders are organized and work.
Word 97/98
Move the folder (let's call it Folder A) outside of the Templates
folder (or Workgroup Templates folder). If you want the templates in
Folder A available under a different tab, you can move them to the
folder for that tab or your can simply put the folder you no longer
want to appear as a tab into a different folder that still will appear
as a tab. If you put the folder (Folder A) into a different folder
(Folder B) in the templates folder, the folder you moved (Folder A)
will no longer appear as a tab in the File New dialog but its
templates will all appear under the tab for Folder B.
Word 2000-2003
If your tab is created by a folder in your user templates folder or
your workgroup templates folder, follow the instructions for Word
97/98. If it is a built-in folder, then you will have to uninstall
those templates using Add/Remove Programs. For detailed instructions
see this Knowledge Base Article Q210884
or run through the following steps (based upon a post
by Gary Frieder on Woody's Word
Lounge).
- Close Word
- Select Microsoft Office (your version) in Add/Remove Programs.
- Click on the Change button.
- Click on Add or Remove Features.
- Click on the plus symbol next to Microsoft Word for Windows to expand it.
- Click on the plus symbol next to Wizards and Templates to expand it.
- You will see a number of categories such as Letters, Memos etc. These
categories correspond to the tabs under File => New.
- Click on the box symbol just to the left of any of these category names.
- Click on the "X Not Available" option. This means just what it
says, these templates will not be available unless you go back and reinstall
them.
- Then click on the "Update Now" button at the bottom right of the
dialog.
If you just want to get rid of the tab but you still want (some of)
the templates, you will need to reproduce those templates before you
uninstall the category (tab). You can do this by creating and saving a
new template (click the "New Template") checkbox in the File
=> New dialog box and save the template in a different folder /
tab. Alternatively, the templates may actually exist on your hard
drive, just not in your user templates folder. Look for a folder
labeled 1033 (English language version) in C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\. Again, this is not your user
templates folder. Almost all installed built-in templates are in this
folder. You can copy the one you want out of here into your user
templates folder (or a folder therein).
There is a
Registry hack for deleting tabs as well. This eliminates the tab
but not the templates. (How you'll access them, though is anyone's
guess.) It was published in Woody's Office for Mere Mortals. Not for
the faint of heart. Back up your Registry before doing anything like
this.
You may want to look at Graham Mayor's page on
template locations for pictures of the steps in uninstalling
templates in Word 2000-2003.
Word 2007-2010
This is a registry tweak. If you don't already know how to do
edit the registry with regedit don't attempt this. Backup your
registry before making any modifications.
With all Office components closed, use regedit to expand to
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Components\8F622368F04
F7B849A7B2021EE668F21
Select individual keys and rename them to remove individual
templates, or rename the top level key (8F622... etc) to remove them
all, including the tabs. Add the word "NOT" to the start of the key
to make this easily reversible. (This will put it at the end of the
alphabetical order.)
Restart your computer.
Opening a template for editing
You will need to know the location of the template before you attempt to
edit it. In Windows, use Start => Find... => Files and Folders to do this. On a
Mac, use the finder.
From Word
You open a template for editing the same way you open a regular document.
(File => Open) The trick is navigating to the folder that contains the
template. Once you have done this, simply open the template. Note that if you
have opened the template the name shown in the title bar will be the
template's name, not "Document 1." Since the task of navigating to
the template is difficult, you may want to simply open the template ...
From Explorer
You open a template for editing from Explorer by right-clicking on it and
selecting "Open" from the shortcut-menu that pops up. If you simply
double-click on the template, you will get a new document based on the
template.
Using one template to create a new template
Once you have a good template, why re-invent it? You have your letterhead
set up the way you want (see Letterhead
System), why not use that template as a base for your form letter.
Probably the best way to do this is to open the template as if to edit it and
then save it under a different name before you change anything. Doing this
(Save As...) will transfer macros and all styles into new template.
If you change the definition of a style in your new template, that style
should continue to be applied to paragraphs that serve the same purpose in
the new template as paragraphs using the style of the same name serve in
other documents. If the style will serve a different purpose in the new
template, it should have a different name, and perhaps be based on an
existing style from the old template. Doing things this way makes it much
easier to copy text between documents based on different templates. That leads us into a discussion of ...
Styles in Templates
The reasons for using styles in a template are the same as those for
using them in your documents - in Spades:
| Consistency — When you use styles to format your
templates, documents having the same function will have a similar,
familiar appearance and be easier for the reader to understand. Each section is formatted the same and therefore, provides
a professional, clean-looking document. |
| Easier to Modify — If you use styles in your
template consistently, you only need to update a given style once if you want to
change the characteristics of all text formatted in that style. |
| Efficiency — You can create a style once, and then apply
it to any section in the documents based upon the template without having to format each
document individually. You can change a style in a template and
update the styles in the attached documents easily. |
| Table of Contents — Styles can be used to generate a
table of contents quickly. |
| Faster Navigation — Using styles lets you quickly move
to different sections in a document using the Document Map feature and
the vertical scrollbar's tips. |
| Working in Outline View — Styles allow you to outline
and organize your document's main topics with ease. |
| Legal Outline Numbering – Numbering, when linked to styles,
allows you to generate and update consistent outline numbering in legal
documents, even ones with complicated numbering schemes like municipal
law, tax law, and mergers and acquisitions documents. Failure to use
numbering linked to styles is one of the easiest ways to really
mess up a Word document. This applies to templates even more! |
| Efficiency of Word — Files which are predominantly
manually formatted are less efficient than those which have formatting
that has been imposed by styles: manually formatted files, such a
converted documents which have been File, Opened, are bloated in file
size (bytes) and do not render to the screen efficiently when you scroll
through them. This is because Word is a styles-based application: it
first reads the attributes of the underlying style, then has to
broadcast anything contrary (e.g. manually formatted on top of that). As
such, a lengthy document that has been predominantly manually formatted,
will behave sluggishly because Word has to work harder at managing it.
Additionally, the print formatting processes are equally labored as
opposed to using styles. (Each paragraph mark in Word will carry up
to thirty different formatting commands for the screen and printer.
These can all be replaced by one style setting.) |
| HTML AND XML — What lies ahead? A fully structured,
styled template will move into HTML and XML incredibly well. |
| Bottom line — Use of any direct formatting in a
document template is a very bad idea. It will cause users of your
templates (and, if there is any justice in the world, you) uncounted
headaches. For more on Styles, see that
tutorial. |
|
|
Note In Word 2000, styles are listed in
alphabetical order. In Word 97 styles listed in the drop-down
list are not displayed in alphabetical order. Word 97 lists
styles in the following order in the Style Box list:
| Heading styles |
| Normal style |
| User-defined styles in alphabetical order |
| Body Text styles |
| List styles |
| All other styles listed alphabetically. |
|
 |
Warning I do not recommend selecting the
Automatically update the style box especially in a legal
environment where multiple users work on the same document. This
feature will update the style each time you make a formatting
change in a paragraph that has a style attached. |
In How to Create a Template -
2, John McGhie lays down the law using
styles in templates, so well that it bears repeating:
"Always
change formatting with Format>Style
.
I may sometimes forget to say so, in which case please remember
it for me! ...[R]emember:
for most users, the only thing they can ever access in a template is the
styles. If the settings are
not in the styles, they’re pointless."
Using the Organizer to Copy Macros, Styles, and Toolbars
You can copy styles, macros, and toolbars between documents or templates. One of the most
effective ways to do this is through the Organizer. The Organizer is a
tool built into Word that allows you to quickly copy Styles, AutoText,
Toolbars and Macros. You can access the Organizer in one of two ways: from
the Format menu, choose Style and click Organizer; or from the Tools menu,
choose Templates and Add-Ins and click Organizer. This can get
difficult, though, especially with toolbars. See Moving (Sharing) Customizations in Microsoft Word
for my suggestions on how to do this.
|
Note If a style name that you are copying
already exists, you are asked if you want to replace
it.
I have found it best when copying styles using the organizer to copy
them three times if any of the styles is based on other styles or is
followed by other styles. I'm not sure why this makes a
difference, but I've found that clicking on that copy button three
times means that these relationships continue in the destination
template. I know that when I copy them only once, they do not and
the styles are then followed by the Normal style.
|
Copying Keyboard Shortcuts and menu modifications from one template
to another
This is not as simple, because Word has no method built-in for doing
it. I do it by using a global template developed by Chris Woodman. You
can download this for free from:
http://www.chriswoodman.co.uk/Shortcut%20Organizer.htm
Once you have placed the global template to have it work as a global,
you have will have an additional command under Tools that says Organize
keyboard. It works like the organizer. (This global also adds a command
under the Edit menu that lets you use document variables like document
properties.)
I recommend that you open this template and read it. Then, while in
the template, right click on your toolbars and un-check
"Shortcuts." I find the toolbar to be overkill. You may also
want to remove the document variables command that is now under your
File menu. To do this...
Tools => Customize
Drag the command off of the menu and into your document.
Macros in Templates and Documents
Macros get into templates or documents by being recorded or by using
the VBA editor (or being put there by another macro). Because of the
warning that pops up when Word detects macros, many Word users are very
leery of them. This is unfortunate because they are one of the best
tools available for getting Word to work the way you want it to
work.
It is all a matter of trust though. A bowl of soup can be very
tasty and provide needed nourishment. It can also contain poison or a
disease. For this reason, I recommend that the macro virus security be
set at least at medium in all versions of Word that have such security
(Word 97 and later.)
This area is a draft and very much a work in
progress. For most users this is something they never need to know or
worry about. It is likely to end up in a separate chapter. This is
pretty much everything I know or think I know about Auto macros and
hasn't all been tested. It is also covered in many other books and isn't
specific to law office use.
There are a class of macros that can be put into a template or
document that run without any notice to the user and without being
called by a toolbar or button. These are known as "auto"
macros and include:
| AutoOpen - document/template opened
- Document_Open in ThisDocument |
| AutoClose - document/template closed
- Document_Close in This Document |
| AutoExec - Word started up or Template added as global |
| AutoExit - Word closed (exited) or Template unloaded as global |
| AutoNew - new document created
- Document_New in ThisDocument |
|
 |
Tip You can keep these macros from running by holding down your
Shift key while opening (closing) the document /
starting (exiting) Word. |
You can keep the macros from running by holding down your Shift key while opening
(closing) the document /
starting (exiting) Word.
The AutoOpen Macro runs when an existing document or template is
opened (not when a new document is created).
If you put an AutoOpen macro in Normal.dot, it will run every time any document (or template) is opened.
(It will also run anytime you open Normal.dot.)
If you put an AutoOpen macro in a template, it will run anytime a document based on the template is opened (so long as the template remains attached).
It will also run anytime the template is opened. It will run instead of
any AutoOpen macro in Normal.dot.
If you put an AutoOpen macro in a global template, it will run only when the
template is opened. You can run a global macro upon the opening
of any document by placing the following macro in that document's
template:
Sub AutoOpen()
Application.Run.MacroName:="myGlobalMacro"
End Sub
You can also run a macro in a global template upon opening any
document by using the document
open event.
AutoClose macros work the same as AutoOpen macros except that
they run when a document or template is closed.
AutoExec macros are for use only in Normal.dot and other
global templates. The will run anytime the template containing the macro is
loaded. (For Normal.dot and automatically loading globals this is when Word is started. For other
global templates it is when the template is loaded as an Add-In.
AutoExec macros can be in Normal.dot, global.dot, global2.dot, etc and all of them will
run! Normally when you have macros with the same name in multiple active places, only the macro closest to the document runs. For AutoOpen macros, if you had an AutoOpen macro in
Normal.dot, the attached template, and the document only the macro in the document would run.)
The following is an example of an AutoExec macro that disables the web
toolbar.
Sub AutoExec()
Application.CommandBars("Web").Enabled = False
End Sub
AutoExit macros work like AutoExec macros except that they run
when the template is unloaded. For Normal.dot, that means when Word is
closed. For globals it means when Word is closed or when the global is
unloaded using Templates and Add-Ins.
AutoNew macros have no use in documents or global templates,
only in document templates and in Normal.dot. An AutoNew macro in
Normal.dot will run anytime a new document is created. An AutoNew macro
in a document template will run whenever a document is created based on
the template. If there are AutoNew macros in both Normal.dot and in the
document template, the macro in the template will run and that in
Normal.dot will not.
The following sample macro can be used to test when a macro is
called:
Sub AutoOpen() ' Test macro MsgBox "The AutoOpen macro in Normal.dot is running" End Sub
Note that you have to write this macro in the VBA Editor, you can't
just record it. If you want to record a macro to test, you could record
a macro that types some text, pauses, and then deletes that text.
See: Creating
a macro with no programming experience using the recorder by Bill
Coan, MVP
See also: How
to assign a Word command or macro to a toolbar or menu by Dave Rado
See also: Running
a macro automatically when a document is created, opened or closed by Dave Rado
See also: The
art of defensive programming by Jonathon West, MVP
See also:
Customizing Word: A Roadmap for the Professional Developer by Bill
Coan, MVP
Much more to write here. This will probably end
up in a separate chapter on macros.
This is definitely a work in progress. I
have posted it and placed it in the table of contents because I think
that it is finished enough to be more help than harm. I work on it (and
the other chapters listed below) in my spare time as the mood strikes
me. Please let me know
of any errors you spot or any suggestions you have to make it more
useful. Thank you.
You can reach me by
e-mail.
Other very rough chapters in development but not listed in the
table of contents are:
Copyright (c) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2011, Charles Kyle Kenyon, Madison, Wisconsin, USA All
rights reserved. Please do not copy this without express permission.
Portions of this (primarily the portion on styles) were copied almost
verbatim from the chapter on Understanding Styles.
That text is subject to copyright of Microsoft and the individual
authors and is copied with permission.
|
Copyright 2000, Microsoft Corporation.