Attaching Templates to Documents

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Every document has a template associated with it, or "attached" to it, that controls the basic layout and settings used in the document by default. If you create a new, blank document, the Normal.dot template, which is a global template, is attached to the document. When you create a document from an existing template, that document template is automatically attached to the document as well. You can specify which document template you want to attach to a document, regardless of which template is currently attached. And when you replace the existing document template with a new one, you can specify to automatically update the document's text with the new styles, which makes changing templates and formatting later a snap.

To attach a document template to a document and update the document's styles based on the newly attached template, follow these steps:

1. Open your document, and then choose Tools, Templates And Add-Ins. The Templates And Add-Ins dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 16-6.

   
   Figure 16-6: The Templates And Add-Ins dialog box helps you attach a different template to a document, automatically update styles, and control global templates and add-ins.

2. Click Attach to display the Attach Template dialog box, which looks very similar to the Open dialog box. The contents of the Templates folder are displayed by default.

3. Select the template you want to attach to the current document, and then click Open (or simply double-click the desired template). If you want to attach a template that's not stored in the Templates folder, you'll need to navigate to the template's location in the Attach Template dialog box.

4. To automatically apply the newly attached template's styles to the current document, select the Automatically Update Document Styles check box in the Templates And Add-Ins dialog box.

5. Click OK to attach the selected template to the current document.

If you direct Word to automatically update styles, keep in mind that the document text must be formatted with styles that have the same style names as the style names included in the newly attached template. If the style names are the same, Word will update the text formatting to match the newly attached template's style formats. If the document's style names are different from the attached template's style names, you'll have to select and replace instances of each style. If you find that you're faced with changing styles manually, consider using the Select All feature in the Styles And Formatting task pane to choose all instances of an "old" style, and then click the new style name in the Styles And Formatting task pane to replace the styles.

Cross-Reference 

For more information about changing all instances of a style, see Chapter 9, "Using Styles to Increase Your Formatting Power."

Modify Attached Templates

Instead of replacing an attached template with a different one, you might occasionally want to modify an attached template. You might want to modify a template when you're satisfied with the current template for the most part but you want to do some minor tweaking or add a new component. Modifying an attached template has the following effects:

• Macros, AutoText entries, custom toolbars, and custom command settings in the modified template are available for use in any document based on the template, including existing documents.

• Modified styles are not immediately updated in existing files to match the template's new styles.

• Added or modified boilerplate text, graphics, and format settings (such as page margins, column settings, and so forth) are applied to new documents subsequently based on the modified template. Existing documents aren't affected.

If you want to update an existing file that was created using a template before it was modified, open the document, display the Templates And Add-Ins dialog box (by choosing Tools, Templates And Add-Ins), and then select the Automatically Update Document Styles check box. After you click OK, the document will be reformatted using the template's new settings.

For more information about how to modify existing templates, see "Modifying Existing Templates,".

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