How do you create a template without using an existing template?

[sheana]

The book I have demontrates how to create a template from an existing one,
but how do you create one from scratch?

 

[Terry Farrell]

You cannot. Any document opened in Word is based on a template. Even the
BLANK document you get on opening Word is created from normal.dot (the
global template).

But you can open a document. select SaveAs and choose template to make the
document into a template. But even that document must have been created
originally from a template.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In the New (or, in recent editions, Templates) dialog, select Blank Document
and the radio button for Template rather than Document. As Terry points out,
all templates are based on *something,* but basing a template on Normal.dot
(which you do if you select Blank Document) is as close as you can get to
creating one "from scratch."

As Terry mentions, you can also create a template based on a document by
saving the document as a template. There are a few differences between
creating a template "from scratch" (in the New/Templates dialog) and saving
a document as a template. The primary one is that anything that can be
stored only in a template (and not in a document) will be included when you
create a template from scratch. What this pretty much boils down to these
days is AutoText entries, with the Catch-22 that AutoText entries in
Normal.dot are *not* copied into a new template (if they were, they would be
duplicated on your AutoText menus). But if you have saved AutoText entries
in a specific document template and create a new template based on that one,
you will get them in the new template.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Suzanne, Terry

I have to say that this is not my experience. If I set Normal style in
Normal.dot to be, say, 8pt Arial Magenta, and if (Word 2003 here), in
the Templates dialog, I select the Template radio button and create a
new Template, then Word will create my new template with the
out-of-the-box settings and Normal style will be TNR 12. I conclude
that, in this case, Word is not creating my new template on normal.dot,
but is instead building it straight from its default settings stored in
the binary.

On the other hand, if I create a new document (with my 8pt Arial
Magenta) and save it as a template, then I get a template with 8pt Arial
Magenta for Normal style.

Is that not what you see?

Shauna

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I was speaking theoretically and (obviously) without empirical knowledge. To
begin with, I don't often create templates. Moreover, I never modify the
formatting of Normal.dot (I customize it with toolbar buttons and AutoText
and macros and the like, but I don't change the font, page layout, style
definitions, etc.) because I want to keep it pristine as a reference for the
out-of-the-box style definitions.

 

[Beth Melton]

I use the same method Shauna provided -- it's about as out-of-the-box as you
can get and thankfully none of your Normal.dot(m) customizations are
included, such as custom toolbars. I found this "trick" after working on a
project with Bill Coan. I accidentally included toolbar customizations in my
global template which resulted in removing toolbar customizations in his
global template. Whoops!

I also use it when I want to make sure I'm working with all of the defaults,
such as checking the default style definitions.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

That's useful knowledge, which I shall try to tuck away. Thanks.