Difficulty understanding templates vs. documents.

[sheana]

I am studying creating Word templates. When I bring up the "New" dialogue
box by hitting "File" and then "New" I have a choice to create a document or
a template.

The first has the .doc extension and the second the .dot extension. I don't
understand what the difference is between the two, and what would make me
choose to Create a Document vs a Template. My teacher said that with one a
new file is created and with the other it's not. Is the Blank document in
the "New" dialogue box the same thing as clicking on the "new blank document"
icon in the standard toolbar?

Any explanation you can give me would be most appreciated, as the course
book doesn't explain this.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

To start with your last question, yes, creating a document based on the
Blank Document in the New (or Templates) dialog is the same as clicking the
New button on the Standard toolbar.

Ordinarily you want to create a new document based on any template, and that
is the default action if you double-click on the icon in the New dialog or
in an Explorer window. You create a new template when you want to save
specific formatting that's different from existing templates. You can do
this by creating a new template from the outset (choosing Template instead
of Document in the New dialog) or by saving an existing document as a
template. In either case, the default Save location will be the correct
folder for document templates.

For more on creating templates (both why and how), see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm