Can I update a word-document based on an external template?

[Mikael Lindqvist]

Hi everyone,

I'm creating a quite a few documents - all based on a template that I have
created and saved on my computer.

Now, I'm quite sure that I'll sometime need to update the template (header,
footer and changing the formats).

My question: Is it possible to quickly update ALL of the documents that I
have created based on a chosen template? That is, if I change header, footer
or format on my template I want to have this changes updated where applicable
(just like "web css-templating").

Kindly,
Mikael Lindqvist
Sweden

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi everyone,

I'm creating a quite a few documents - all based on a template that I
have created and saved on my computer.

Now, I'm quite sure that I'll sometime need to update the template
(header, footer and changing the formats).

My question: Is it possible to quickly update ALL of the documents
that I have created based on a chosen template? That is, if I change
header, footer or format on my template I want to have this changes
updated where applicable (just like "web css-templating").

Kindly,
Mikael Lindqvist
Sweden

If you change the styles in the template, you can force the documents to
update to use the new style definitions. It won't have any effect, though,
on the headers and footers. Read
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/templaterelations/index.html and
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/attachtemplate/index.html for explanations.

If you know you're going to change the content of the headers and footers,
and not just the formatting, then you may be able to set up the template
with IncludeText and IncludePicture fields instead of fixed text and
graphics. These fields take their contents from bookmarked items in another
document. When you update the source document, then you need to open the
destination documents and update the fields.

If you can't use the field scheme, you can change fixed-text headers and
footers in a batch of existing documents with an adaptation of the macro in
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/BatchFR.htm.

When dealing with Word, forget anything you've learned about CSS. It's a
different model.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

An alternative to IncludeText and IncludePicture fields is AutoText fields;
it's a bit harder to update AutoText entries than content in an external
document, but insertion is easier (no problems with referencing a file or
bookmark) and you don't have to keep track of external files.