Sharing Quick Parts in 2007

[derohanes]

I'd like to put the file I'm attaching in a shared folder, and have
everyone in my department access it and use the Quick Parts. When I try
to move this file to another system, or put it on a shared drive, the
person opening it cannot see the Quick Parts, therefore, the check box
macros fail. I'm attaching the latest version.

I did some hunting around, and the best I could do is that they say
that Quick Parts are stored in a template Building Blocks.dotx. I did a
search on my hard drive and found one file, but it is empty. It does
have the Quick Parts list to select from, but I'm not sure if I need to
move this file as well. And if so, where would I put it on a shared
drive.

 

[Jay Freedman]

The default set of quick parts is indeed in the Building Block.dotx
file, and you can add more to that file or to any other template (when
you press Alt+F3, there's a box in the dialog to say which template to
store the new item in).

Word uses only quick parts from the Building Blocks.dotx file in the
current user's profile, from Normal.dotm, from the base template for
the current document (if it's different from Normal.dotm), and from
any global templates (stored in the %appdata%\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
folder) that contain quick parts.

As far as I know, there is no way to make Word use quick parts from
any shared folder. The best method is to arrange with your IT group to
have a network login script that copies the template containing shared
quick parts (NOT the Building Blocks.dotx template, but some other
name) into the user's profile at connection time.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Tony Jollans]

You can have a Shared Building Blocks folder - but it does need a registry
tweak.

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\General

Change, or create, the string value to the full path and name of the
folder. Any templates in there will then be used as BB templates.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Somehow I missed that one. Is it documented somewhere (preferably
something official, not one of the Word Team blogs)?

And, since I don't see anything obvious on my own system, what should
be the name of the entry under that key?

 

[Tony Jollans]

Oops, sorry!

The Value is SharedDocumentParts

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926280

 

[Jay Freedman]

Thanks, Tony.

Just out of curiosity: The "Steps to reproduce" section includes adding the
shared location to the list of trusted folders, but the workarounds don't
say anything about that. Does the workaround work OK without specifically
trusting the shared location, if it isn't already in the list? (I'd test it
here, but we're having some network problems following a weekend electrical
shutdown of the building.)

 

[Tony Jollans]

It shouldn't normally be an issue, Jay. BB Templates do not normally contain
macros and the normal (non-shared) locations are not trusted.