Interactions between Normal and custom templates

[Guest]

Hi. I am planning a new custom document template for a client. I won't be
modifying the Normal template on the client's machines, and, as it turns out,
different machines may have Normal templates that vary from each other.

What I'm not sure about is how custom template and the Normal template
interact, e.g. if they are merged as CSS is, or if a custom template becomes
the exclusive source of styles.

For example, if I don't define style "Normal" in the custom template, is the
style version from the Normal template used?

Right now, my plans are that the custom template will have a variety of new
styles, plus changes to the Heading styles and the TOC styles, but no changes
to the Normal style.

TIA
Patrick

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Patrick

When you create a document based on a template other than normal.dot, then
normal.dot hangs around in the background and behaves like an add-in. In
that circumstance, normal.dot is not, and does not behave as, the document's
template. So in that case there is no relationship at all between the
document's styles and the styles in normal.dot.

The following might help:
What is the relationship between a Word document and its template?
http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/templaterelations\index.html

and

What do Templates and Add-ins store?
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/WhatTemplatesStore.htm

Hope this helps.

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

 

[Guest]

Hi Shauna

Thanks for the prompt reply.

When you create a document based on a template other than normal.dot, then
normal.dot hangs around in the background and behaves like an add-in. In
that circumstance, normal.dot is not, and does not behave as, the document's
template. So in that case there is no relationship at all between the
document's styles and the styles in normal.dot.

What is unclear to me is--does this imply that my custom template must have
styling defined for all styles, including Normal? In other words, if I
understand you correctly, the styles available to a document attached to a
custom template are *only* those styles defined in the custom template.

My guess is this makes sense, as I think one can't delete styles like
Normal, Heading X, etc.

?
Thanks

 

[Shauna Kelly]

does this imply that my custom template must have

styling defined for all styles, including Normal?

Yes. When you create a new template using File > New and choose to create a
Template, Word will automatically define all the built-in styles. Just for
the record, these are *not* based on whatever your normal.dot styles happen
to be. Word generates the defaults for a new template from within the
program itself.

the styles available to a document attached to a
custom template are *only* those styles defined in the custom template.

Not quite. At the moment of its birth, a document inherits the styles of its
parent template (and from nowhere else). From that moment on, a document's
styles do not depend on its parent template's styles, but may be changed
independently of the styles in its parent template.

I think one can't delete styles like
Normal, Heading X, etc.

True. If you try, Word just puts them back to the default.

Hope this helps.

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

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Yes. When you create a new template using File > New and choose to create
a

Template, Word will automatically define all the built-in styles. Just for
the record, these are *not* based on whatever your normal.dot styles happen
to be. Word generates the defaults for a new template from within the
program itself.

If, however, you create a template from a document based on Normal.dot, then
it will inherit whatever modifications you have made to Normal.dot. In
either case, however, any style that you don't explicitly modify in your
template will retain the formatting of Normal.dot (if you created it from a
document) or of the default Normal.dot (if you started with a template from
File | New).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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