Creating Your Own Templates

Creating Your Own Templates

If Word doesn't provide a ready-made template for the type of documents you create, or if you want more control over the appearance of your documents, you will probably want to create a template from scratch. You do this by basing the new template on the "plain vanilla " Normal template.

To create a template from scratch, follow these steps:

1. Choose File, New to display the New dialog box.

2. In the General tab, make sure the Blank Document icon is selected (this is the Normal template). Under Create New in the lower-right corner of the dialog box, mark the Template option button, and click the OK button.

3. Word starts a new template based on the Normal template. Type and format the text that you want to appear in all documents based on this template. For example, if you're creating a template for business letters , you might include the letterhead, the beginning of the salutation, and the signature block. To make the template easy to use, you might also add placeholders for text that needs to be filled in such as typing [Place Date Here] where the date should go in the target document that uses this template.

4. If you want to include styles in the template, create them now. Because you're working with the template directly, not with a document based on the template, Word saves the styles in the template whether or not you mark the Add to Template check box in the New Style dialog box.

5. When you have completed the template, choose File, Save As, and save the file in the Templates folder or a subfolder of this folder.

If you have an existing document that contains all the text and formatting you want in your template, you can save the document as a template. First remove the text that's specific to that document. Then replace the text you deleted with placeholders, and choose File, Save As. Specify Document Template in the Save As Type list in the Save As dialog box, and save the template in the Templates folder or a subfolder of this folder.

Modifying Your Templates

No matter how carefully you originally design your templates, you will sooner or later want to make some improvements.

Follow these steps to make changes to a template:

1. Click the Open button in the Standard toolbar.

2. In the Files of Type list at the bottom of the Open dialog box, select Document Templates. Then navigate to the C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates folder or one of its subfolders and double-click the template that you want to revise .

3. Revise your template as necessary.

4. Click the Save button in the Standard toolbar, and then close the template.

The preceding set of steps involves opening a template and making changes to it directly. This is not always necessary, however. When you close a document based on the Normal template after you've added, modified, or deleted any of the items you can store in templates (styles, toolbars , AutoText entries, and macros), Word automatically saves these changes to the template.

When you close a document that is based on any template other than Normal, Word first asks whether you want to save changes to the document (if you have unsaved changes). If you have added, modified, or deleted any of the four items you can store in templates, Word then asks whether you want to save changes to the template. Click the Yes button to retain the changes.