If you've worked hard to format a document just right, you might be tempted to use that document as a template, but don't. Your new template, and consequently, any new documents you base on that template, will start life with whatever garbage the original document acquired during its lifetime. All those little attributes and attempts at things that you tried, things you didn't complete, but didn't delete - all of it ends up in every new document. The best way to create a template is to start fresh, even though that might seem inefficient.
You might also consider creating a template by opening a new document the way you always do and then saving it as a template file - but don't do this either. Your new template and its offspring will be based on your current (and probably somewhat customized) Normal template. Any customization will show up in your new template and its offspring. To illustrate this seemingly innocuous behavior, do the following: • Press [Ctrl]+o. In the Open dialog, click Trusted Templates.
Double-click Normal.dotm. In Word 2003, you'll probably find Normal.dot in Documents and Settings Administrator Application Data Microsoft Templates. • Right-click Normal in the Styles gallery and choose Modify.
Jun 16, 2012 How to create smart Microsoft Word templates. Creating a template with the Drop-Down List Content Control or the Combo Box Content Control is the way to.
In Word 2003, choose Styles and Formatting from the Format menu, and then, right-click Normal in the Styles task pane. • Choose any color from the Color dropdown, replacing Automatic. Save Normal.dotm (Normal.dot) and close it. Now, press [Ctrl]+n to open a new document and start typing - the text will be in the color you just choose for Normal.dotm. Well, of course it is, and that's great for your new documents, but probably not a new template. (Don't forgot to change Normal.dotm's font color back to Automatic.) In addition, don't forget all the other customizations you've made that aren't even visible in a new document! In short, it only seems like there are several ways to create a new template.
To be safe, follow these guidelines: • Don't base a new template on an existing document. • Don't base a new template on a new document file. • Always base a new template on a template file (as shown above). If you want to base a template on an existing document for your own use, go ahead. If trouble arises, you're the only one that has to deal with it and the template might work fine. I don't recommend this route for development or templates you plan to distribute to others.
In either of these cases, take the extra time to start from scratch. You'll avoid distributing unforgotten garbage and attributes that could come back to haunt you later. Related Topics.
This walkthrough demonstrates how to create a document-level customization that uses content controls to create structured and reusable content in a Microsoft Office Word template. Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects for Word. For more information, see. Word enables you to create a collection of reusable document parts, named building blocks.
This walkthrough shows how to create two tables as building blocks. Each table contains several content controls that can hold different types of content, such as plain text or dates. One of the tables contains information about an employee, and the other table contains customer feedback. After you create a document from the template, you can add either of the tables to the document by using several objects, which display the available building blocks in the template.
This walkthrough illustrates the following tasks: • Creating tables that contain content controls in a Word template at design time. • Populating a combo box content control and a drop-down list content control programmatically.
• Preventing users from editing a specified table. • Adding tables to the building block collection of a template. • Creating a content control that displays the available building blocks in the template. Note Your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in the following instructions.
The Visual Studio edition that you have and the settings that you use determine these elements. For more information, see. Create a table that contains four different types of content controls where the user can enter information about an employee. To create the employee table • In the Word template that is hosted in the Visual Studio designer, on the Ribbon, click the Insert tab.