MS Word Templates

Would you answer “Yes” to any of the following questions?:

Do you regularly write letters, reports or proposals?

Are you one of a team who each have their own ‘preferences’ when it comes to document layout, font, etc.?

When you need to create a document, do you find yourself opening an ‘old’ one and then saving it with a new name? 

Do you sometimes forget to update or delete text in a document you’ve used to create another document?

Do you work for a company that doesn’t have a clear corporate image that’s reflected in their correspondence and/or reports?

You're not the only one...

Word has template functionality which lets you set up how you want your document to look and which may include some common text.  Whenever you want to create a new document, you simply open the template and the formatting and standard content are all set up ready to go.  This means that every document created from the template will have the same look and feel to it.

Templates are saved as files with a suffix of .dot (in versions of Word up to 2003), and .dotx or .dotm (for Word 2007 and 2010).

You probably don’t realise it but you currently use a template.  Have you had that annoying message “Do you want to save changes to Normal.dot?”  This is the default Word template that holds all the default Word settings for your computer.

But wait, there’s more……

You can set up macros in your template that will let you do all sorts of cool stuff such as inserting a table that’s formatted exactly how you want it.  We’ll talk about macros more in a future article but they can increase functionality enormously.

WritersInc regularly create templates that include functionality such as the ability to change formatting easily or insert optional text.  We can also make it easy to input information, such as a client name, and then copy it into all the required places in the document.