Saving a Word 2003 file as a document template

[Guest]

Our company has a letterhead that I saved as a document template.
When our employees use the letterhead and use the automatic save function,
instead of the 'Save As' function, their documents save over the templates.

According to my knowledge this isn't supposed to happen.
Can anyone tell me how to correct this and why this is happening???
It's getting very irritating when you need to write a letter on the
template, and you first have to go and delete someone else's letters

PLEASE HELP!!
--
Jurie Fourie
Management Accountant
Jacobs & Partners
Worcester
South Africa

 

[Bill Foley]

How are they accessing this template? If they double-click a template icon
on their Desktop, it will open a new document based on this template and you
won't have this problem. If you open Word, click "File", "New" and select
the template from the "General" templates TAB, you won't have this problem.
If you "open" the template and type your letter, you are changing the
template and experiencing the problem you are describing.

Once again, how are you (they) accessing this template file? Is it on a
network? Desktop?

 

[Guest]

I created the templates in Word 2003 and then I saved them in a folder on our
network. When they access the template they go into Word, say 'File Open',
and then open the file from the folder containing the templates. And that is
when they use the save icon in Word, their documents gets saved over the
templates I created and the file is definately saved as a template.

Does this give you new insight to my problem??

 

[Bill Foley]

Yes! You can't do a "File", "Open" with a template because that is telling
Word that you want to modify the template. You have a couple of choices
(probably more, but these are the ones I recommend):

1. Have each user open Word, click "Tools", "Options", click the "File
Locations" TAB, select "Workgroup Templates", click "Modify" button, browse
to and select the folder where these templates exist. Click "OK" as
necessary to accept and close out. Now when you click "File", "New" and the
TaskPane opens, click "General Templates" and these templates will be
available to create new documents.

2. You can create a Document Management System that consists of a toolbar
with a button for your forms that opens a UserForm listing all of your
templates. The code is designed to go to that folder and open a new
document based on that template. I have a brief write-up and sample
download listed on the bottom right of my home page or directly at:

http://www.pttinc.com/doc_management.html

Good Luck!