Creating Custom Templates | Microsoft Word Version 2002 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))

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Once you're familiar with how templates work and how to use existing templates, you're ready to start creating your own templates. In Word, you can create templates in three ways. You can base a template on an existing document, base a new template on an existing template, or create a template from scratch. The method you use should depend on the resources you have on hand, as follows:

Create a template based on a document when you have a document that contains most or all of the settings you want to use in your template.
Create a template based on an existing template when you have a template that contains many of the settings you want to use in your new template but you want to add or change a few settings without affecting the existing template.
Create a template from scratch when you have no usable model to use as a starting point for your template.

When you create custom templates, you should save your templates in the ...\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates folder so that they'll be easily accessible in the Templates dialog box. Templates you save in the Templates folder appear on the General tab in the Templates dialog box (which means, logically enough, that templates stored elsewhere won't appear in the Templates dialog box). If you want to store your templates on a custom tab in the Templates dialog box, create a new subfolder (or a few subfolders, if necessary) in the Templates folder, and save your templates in that subfolder. The custom tab labels are the same as the subfolders' names, so name your subfolders carefully. Keep in mind that you must save at least one template in each subfolder; otherwise, the subfolder won't appear as a tab in the Templates dialog box.

Now that we have a few details out of the way, let's look more closely at the three ways you can create templates.

Note

You should save your template with the .dot extension, but any document file that you save in the Templates folder will also act as a template by default.

Document templates can be stored on your hard disk, included in a document library, or used as a workgroup template. For more information about document libraries and workgroup templates, see Chapter 32, "Sharing Information on Networks."

Basing a Template on an Existing Document

When you base a template on an existing document, you create a template that contains all the styles, macros, toolbars, menus, layout, and other settings contained in the document. Most likely, you'll want to modify the document's settings slightly to fine-tune your template. You can do so, but be careful. You don't want to modify the document—you want to modify the template. So create your template first, close the existing document (if necessary), and then make all your modifications within the template document at that point, as follows:

Choose File, Open.
In the Open dialog box, open the document that contains the formatting and/or text you want to include in your template.
Choose File, Save As.
In the Save As dialog box, select Document Template in the Save As Type drop-down list, as shown in Figure 22-4.

Figure 22-4. When you select Document Template in the Save As Type drop-down list, Word displays the Templates folder by default.
By default, the document will be saved in the Templates folder, and the template will appear on the General tab in the Templates dialog box. To display the template on a custom tab, create a new subfolder. The subfolder's name will also appear as the name of the tab.
In the File Name box, type a name for the new template, and click Save.
In the new template, add any text or graphics you want to appear in new documents that you base on the template, and delete any information you don't want to appear in documents using the template.
Make setup changes in the new template, if desired. For example, you can change the margin settings, page size and orientation, styles, paragraph formatting, header or footer information, and so forth.
Save and close the new template.

After you create a new template, you should test the template to verify that it works as intended by creating a document using the template. To do so, click the General Templates link in the New Document task pane, click the tab on which the template is located (if necessary), make sure that the Document option is selected in the Create New section in the Templates dialog box, and then double-click the new template.

Creating a New Template Based on an Existing Template

If you have a template that you want to use as a starting point for a new template, you can do so in much the same way you create a template based on an existing document. The main procedural difference is that you open a template (.dot) file instead of a document (.doc) file.

To create a template based on an existing template, follow these steps:

Choose File, New.
In the New Document task pane, click the General Templates link in the New From Template section. The Templates dialog box opens.
Click a template similar to the one you want to create, click the Template option in the Create New section, and then click OK.
After the template opens, choose File, Save As, and save the template as a new template with a new name.
In the new template, add and modify settings as necessary, and then save the template.

Customizing existing templates comes in especially handy when you download templates using the Templates On Microsoft.com link in the New Document task pane. The Web site provides a wide variety of generic templates; you can customize the generic templates by modifying them to suit your specific needs and then save the modified templates as your own.

For more information about the Office Template Gallery, see the section "Obtaining Templates from Microsoft.com."

Building a Template from Scratch

In addition to basing templates on existing documents and templates, you can build templates from scratch. Building a template from scratch is similar to creating a document from scratch. To create a new, blank template, follow these steps:

Choose File, New, and then click General Templates in the New Document task pane.
In the Templates dialog box, choose Template in the Create New section, and then double-click Blank Document on the General tab.

Tip

Another way to create a blank template is to open a new, blank document, open the Save As dialog box, and then save the document as a template.

After you create a blank template file, you can add styles, boilerplate text, custom toolbars, macros, and any other elements you want to include in your template.

Tip - Use themes to create template settings

When you create templates, you might want to incorporate built-in themes to streamline the template creation process. A theme is a set of colors, fonts, and graphics elements (such as ruled lines and bullets) that work together to provide a unified look for you document. Even if you don't see a built-in theme that exactly meets your needs, you can use a theme as a starting point to help identify some of the elements you might want to include in your template. After you apply a theme to your template, you can reformat the theme components to suit your style. For more information about themes, see Chapter 23, "Using Word's Desktop Publishing Features."