M
Mike McGavin
Hello.
Would anyone happen to know where I might be able to find some good
documentation on customizing the New Document dialog in Office 2007
applications? The *only* documentation I've been able to find is the
article on Technet at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178976.aspx
(titled "Deploy custom templates in the 2007 Office system").
This article gives a basic walkthrough of the registry keys to use and
a basic guide to structuring the relevant XML, but I've found it to be
of limited use. For example, other templates in Office Online (as
built into MS Office) appear to show additional meta information such
as the provider of the template, its size, and ratings. Furthermore,
some Office Online tabs have additional sub-categories presented as
links. All that the above-linked article seems to specify is how to
list templates and provide thumbnails for them.
What I've been able to do is so far is design an XML file which lists
about 30 Word templates, and will be available in their own tab of the
New Profile dialog of MS Word 2007. That's about as much control as I
have -- Word seems to list them in an order that's random and
undetermined.
I've also been unsuccessful getting any templates to be available in
the New Profile dialogs for Excel and Powerpoint. Despite having
provided a separate <o:application id="PP"> element as described in
the above-linked article, PowerPoint displays my tab but shows no
templates in it. I've also tried giving Powerpoint its own dedicated
XML file and specifying it as Powerpoint-specific in the registry (in
accordance with the instructions), but I get the same behavior.
One possible difference with our own deployment is that we're storing
templates on the C: drive rather than a networked location, so they're
still available when our users are disconnected from the network.
Consequently, the XML file references them in their local C: drive
locations. I don't see why this should cause problems, but one
curiosity is that if I click on the custom tab I've created in the
dialog, Word will still spend a good 5 seconds acting as if it's
scanning before it actually displays the list templates. (Is that
whole scanning thing just for show?)
Needless to say I've found this whole thing to be quite confusing.
Customizing the New Profile dialog of Office applications seems like
something that could be very useful, and we'd love to be able to use
it help encourage our users to use the organization's templates, but
as yet I'm at a bit of a loss as to how I can do it effectively. If
anyone can point me to some useful documentation on how to do this
properly, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks for any help with this.
Mike.
Would anyone happen to know where I might be able to find some good
documentation on customizing the New Document dialog in Office 2007
applications? The *only* documentation I've been able to find is the
article on Technet at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178976.aspx
(titled "Deploy custom templates in the 2007 Office system").
This article gives a basic walkthrough of the registry keys to use and
a basic guide to structuring the relevant XML, but I've found it to be
of limited use. For example, other templates in Office Online (as
built into MS Office) appear to show additional meta information such
as the provider of the template, its size, and ratings. Furthermore,
some Office Online tabs have additional sub-categories presented as
links. All that the above-linked article seems to specify is how to
list templates and provide thumbnails for them.
What I've been able to do is so far is design an XML file which lists
about 30 Word templates, and will be available in their own tab of the
New Profile dialog of MS Word 2007. That's about as much control as I
have -- Word seems to list them in an order that's random and
undetermined.
I've also been unsuccessful getting any templates to be available in
the New Profile dialogs for Excel and Powerpoint. Despite having
provided a separate <o:application id="PP"> element as described in
the above-linked article, PowerPoint displays my tab but shows no
templates in it. I've also tried giving Powerpoint its own dedicated
XML file and specifying it as Powerpoint-specific in the registry (in
accordance with the instructions), but I get the same behavior.
One possible difference with our own deployment is that we're storing
templates on the C: drive rather than a networked location, so they're
still available when our users are disconnected from the network.
Consequently, the XML file references them in their local C: drive
locations. I don't see why this should cause problems, but one
curiosity is that if I click on the custom tab I've created in the
dialog, Word will still spend a good 5 seconds acting as if it's
scanning before it actually displays the list templates. (Is that
whole scanning thing just for show?)
Needless to say I've found this whole thing to be quite confusing.
Customizing the New Profile dialog of Office applications seems like
something that could be very useful, and we'd love to be able to use
it help encourage our users to use the organization's templates, but
as yet I'm at a bit of a loss as to how I can do it effectively. If
anyone can point me to some useful documentation on how to do this
properly, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks for any help with this.
Mike.