Hi David:
{Sigh} OK, we're going to have to do this the hard way. Now, this may
become complex and time-consuming, and the process is error-prone. You will
be spending a lot of effort on formatting that is going to be simply
discarded. So long as you are comfortable with that...
The basic process is:
1) Define the styles in your template
2) Create an "AutoOpen" macro in the template that sets the "Automatically
update styles on open" property to True. It's a simple one-statement macro:
you can record it. Make sure it's stored in the template that you want to
distribute.
2) Name the template.
It doesn't matter what you name the template, but once you have created a
name, you cannot change it for the duration of the project. Each document
will be attached to the template by its file name. So any variation will
break the link.
3) Place the template in the User Templates location on each user PC
This is the key to it. It doesn't matter where the user templates location
is. It can be in a different location on each user's workstation. It is a
good idea to make the location something easy to find in the user's "My
Documents" folder, because the users are going to have to update the
template in it. It does matter that the template is always in that exact
location, on each user's workstation, and not in any subfolder of that
location. In Word, go to Tools>Options>File Locations. There are two
locations there: "User Templates" and "Workgroup Templates". You can use
either one, but you must use the same one (either User or Workgroup) on all
the workstations. You can set the location anywhere you like, but it must
be a location that will never "go away", so it should be on the local drive,
not a network.
4) Get the authors to create each of their topic documents from the
template.
They should use File>New>From Template... If they do, the template will
remain attached. However, they can create their files by double-clicking if
they wish, it doesn't matter. When they create their topic documents, Word
copies all the styles from the source template. The actual style sheet that
controls a Word document is stored within the document itself. The topic
document then makes no further reference to the template, so it doesn't
matter what the formatting in the template does from now.
5) The authors send the topic documents back to you.
6) When you open the documents on your workstation, they will automatically
adopt the formatting of your template.
You must ensure that you have a copy of the same-named template in your
template location. If you do, Word will automatically re-attach to your
local copy of the template.
7) When you want to update the formatting, email the new template to the
authors and let them overwrite their copy of the template with it.
Make sure the macro remains in place.
Now, some caveats:
* If you do the macro right, the "Automatically update" property will be
set the second time the author opens that topic document. If you suspect
that the authors will only open each topic once, then you need to copy the
macro and name the copy "AutoNew" so it sets the property when they first
create the topic document.
* The authors must work entirely on their local hard drives. They cannot
keep either the template or their documents in their email program. You
must get them to understand this: users these days try to do everything
within their email program. They can't do that, it breaks the link to the
template. Nor can they use "removable" drives. Word searches a hierarchy
of locations for a document's attached template. When it finds it, it
stores the location in the document, and that's where that document will
always look for its template.
* It's critical to put the template in one of the "Trusted" locations,
either User Templates or Workgroup templates.
Those locations override most others, regardless of where there may be other
copies of the same-named templates. There is one location that overrides
the trusted locations: the actual folder in which the topic document
resides. If there's a same-named template in there, that's the one Word
will always use. You need to explain this to the authors, and ensure they
know to REMOVE any same-named template from the document folder, otherwise
their topics will never see the updates.
* You want Auto-series macros to operate. If the template is in any
location other than the Trusted locations, Macro Security will disable the
macros.
OK, some of this you will know how to do. Some of it you may need more
detail on. Get back to us for the bits you need more on.
Cheers
Hi John,
The problem I have is that the authors are not on the same network and
it's not practical to have them all VPNing just for the templates. We
don't run SharePoint here, which may have helped.
When I said that these are help files, they're not Windows help files,
but will remain in their Word format for the moment.
Do symbols exist for path elements in Word???
Thanks,
David
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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
