How do microsoft word templates work

Go beyond the basics with your documents by creating a table of contents or saving a document as a template. Here are some basic tasks that you can do to help you learn how to use Microsoft Word What is Word? Find and apply a template. Create a new document. Open a document. Save a document. Read documents.

Track changes and insert comments. Print your document. Microsoft Word is a word-processing program, designed to help you create professional-quality documents. With the finest document-formatting tools, Word helps you organize and write your documents more efficiently. Word also includes powerful editing and revising tools so that you can collaborate with others easily.

Word allows you to apply built-in templates, to apply your own custom templates, and to search from a variety of templates available on the web. To use one of the built-in templates, click Sample Templates , click the template that you want, and then click Create. To use your own template that you previously created, click My Templates , click the template that you want, and then click OK.

To find a template on Office. Note: You can also search for templates on Office. In the Search Office. For more information about how to create a new document, see Create a document.

In the left pane of the Open dialog box, click the drive or folder that contains the document. In the right pane of the Open dialog box, open the folder that contains the drawing that you want. In the Save as type list, click Word Document. This changes the file format to. For more information about how to create a document that is compatible with Word or earlier versions, see Create a document to be used by previous versions of Word.

Open the document that you want to read. For more information about how to view documents, see Read documents in Word. To turn on change tracking, on the Review tab, in the Tracking group, click Track Changes. To insert a comment, on the Review tab, in the Comments group, click New Comment. For more information about how to track changes made while revising, see Track changes and insert comments. Under Print , in the Copies box, enter the number of copies that you want to print.

If you want to change a setting, click the setting you want to change and then select the setting that you want. For more information about how to print a file, see Preview and print a file. Save changes Word saves your changes automatically. Share documents online Because your document is online, you can share it by sending a link instead of an email attachment. Comment in the browser A comment balloon shows where comments have been made in the doc.

Work together on the same doc To work together in Word for the web, you edit a document as you normally would. In this article What is Word? Find and apply a template Create a new document Open a document Save a document Read documents Track changes and insert comments Print your document What is Word?

Top of Page Find and apply a template Word allows you to apply built-in templates, to apply your own custom templates, and to search from a variety of templates available on the web. To find and apply a template in Word, do the following: On the File tab, click New. It is good practice to have separate templates for different layouts.

Formatted AutoCorrect There are some formatted AutoCorrect entries stored in every new normal template. The exact entries depend on the version of Word. If someone wanted these in a template based on a document and saved as the normal template, they could be recreated in that template. AutoText AutoText is stored in the normal template, by default.

It can be stored in any template. I believe that the default storage location in Word is the file Building Blocks. The screenshot below shows some of the AutoText build into Word 's normal. There does not appear to be any AutoText distributed with Ribbon versions of Word. The built-in entries have been transferred to other building blocks.

In Word AutoText stored in the Normal template can use the AutoComplete function that was available in earlier menu-based versions of Word. Building Blocks Any kind of Building Block can be stored in a template and only in a template. Other templates may be better suited for this. The Normal template is generally not a good storage location. Keyboard Shortcuts As with other templates, keyboard shortcuts can be stored in the normal template.

As with other global templates, shortcuts stored in the normal template are available in all documents and templates, whether created based on the template or not.

The default keyboard shortcuts are not stored in the normal template. They are in the program itself. It is modifications to those shortcuts that are stored in templates including the normal template.

This is true at least back to Word Macros As with other templates, macros can be stored in the normal template. As with other global templates, macros stored in the normal template are available in all documents and templates, whether created based on the template or not. The default storage location for recorded macros is the Normal template's "New Macros" module. Toolbars and Menus Word Ribbon Versions QAT and Ribbon As with other templates, custom toolbars and menus can be stored in the normal template.

As with other global templates, these customizations are available to all documents and templates, whether or not based on the normal template. In Ribbon versions, a representation of toolbar and menu modifications show up under the Add-Ins Tab. In Ribbon versions QAT modifications can be stored in the normal template. They probably should be stored there when they are using macros stored there.

Likewise, Ribbon modifications can be stored there, with extra and unnecessary effort. The normal template is not the best place to create or store QAT and Ribbon modifications. As an experiment, in Word I had Word create a fresh normal. The normal. When the XML structure was examined, the one created by Word had extra components, especially a glossary folder.

That folder contains information about, among other things, the display of styles and the Quick Style Sets. In conclusion, as far as I know, in the ribbon versions of Word, if you attempt to create your own normal template, you lose the Formatted AutoCorrect entries that come with a normal.

You do lose more, but I am unsure of what that more is. There is no reason I know of to try to create your own normal template. Instead, I advise modifying the template created by Word. Numbering Templates 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. We have the open document, the attached document template, global templates, and Normal. All of these can store various customizations. 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 , building blocks or autotext entries in multiple templates loaded simultaneously. This is a good reason for using different names! The order is:. I do not know if there is any conflict in assignment of QAT modifications in the different template levels; I believe they are simply cumulative.

In addition, which is the attached template can have its own hierarchy. It is not necessarily the template used to create the document! See this Word Answers discussion for more about which template will be the "attached template" when the document is re-opened.

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. If you want to add a tab, add a folder and store a template there. Word 97 stores the templates that come with it in these same folders. Word keeps its built-in templates elsewhere. Want to get to your templates quickly? What are shown are icons from Office Online's featured templates.

To get to your own templates, you need to click on "Custom:". There is no way just clicking on buttons and menus in Word that you can view the combined File New dialog from earlier versions because unless set to be the same folder by the user, the user templates folder shown in the classic FileNew dialog and the Custom Office Templates folder are different folders..

You can even add a button to your Ribbon. You can also download a free Add-In with these tweaks. You can create organization folders in your workgroup templates folder as well and store your workgroup templates there. 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.

If you click on the tab AA you will see no templates. No tab is shown for AA because it contains no templates. 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, All templates that are anywhere within folder AD, including in subfolders, are displayed.

The General tab displays all templates in the User templates folder, the workgroup templates folder and one that says "Blank Document. 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. The templates under that tab that come with Word, though will still not be in the folder.

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. 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.

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. Alternatively, the templates may actually exist on your hard drive, just not in your user templates folder. 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 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.

Select individual keys and rename them to remove individual templates, or rename the top level key 8F 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.

You will need to know the location of the template before you attempt to edit it. On a Mac, use the finder. You open a template for editing the same way you open a regular document. 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. 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. 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 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 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. 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. 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 , 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:. You can copy styles and macros, AutoText, and toolbars between documents or templates.

One of the most effective ways to do this is through the Organizer. Not so in the Ribbon versions. Manage Styles is found at the bottom of the Styles Pane. The Document Template dialog can be reached through the button on the Developer Tab.

This can get difficult, though, especially with toolbars. 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. 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. His website has been down for a number of years, but you can download this for free from:. 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. You may also want to remove the document variables command that is now under your File menu.

To do this Look for it on the same page. The following do not stay in the document but rather depend on the attachment to the template:. A document will always be divorced from its template when it is sent to someone else by email. It may attach to a template of the same name on the recipient's computer, this is a matter of happenstance. If you have the option set in a document to update styles automatically from the template, the styles in your document may change to match an unknown set of styles on the recipient's computer.

See What happens when I send my document to someone else? 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:. 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.

It will also run anytime you open Normal. 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. 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:. You can also run a macro in a global template upon opening any document by using the document open event. Word templates allow you streamline many document production tasks and help free up your time for other business activity. Launch Microsoft Word on your computer. Microsoft Word ships with a number of preconfigured templates you can use right away. A list of templates that match your search criteria appears in the Available Templates window.

If using a template from the Office. The template opens as a new document in Microsoft Word. Edit the company name and address information in the template.

Change any default text that you would like to reuse in future documents based off the template. If the template has fields for recipients or the address information, you should leave the field values intact and not change them, since you will probably use the template many times. Leaving the default recipient fields or customer field in place will make documents based off the template easier to edit and use.