How do I make a watermark "template"?

[Renee Clough]

I have a picture watermark that I use for approximately 50% of the documents
that I create. I would like to add it to the pre-defined watermarks so I
don't have to go through the dialog box process every time. Is there any way
to do this?
Thanks,
Renee

 

[Renee Clough]

I forgot to mention that I have Word 2007.
Renee

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can't add it to the built-in watermarks, but you can save it as a
Building Block or AutoText entry.

 

[Renee Clough]

Thanks, I appreciate the information/suggestion, but how would I do that?
Renee

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The simplest way would be to create the watermark in your header, select it,
press Alt+F3, and give it a name. This creates an AutoText entry. To insert
it in a header, type the first few letters of the entry name and press F3.

Or, once you have created it as an AutoText entry, you can go to the
Building Blocks Organizer, select your entry, click Edit Properties, and
change it to a Header building block, after which you will find it will in
the Header gallery.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Renee,

To add a bit to Suzanne's reply if I may

Unlike Word 2003, which had a limitation on what you could add directly to the watermarks dialog, you can add your own custom
watermarks to the Word 2007 Watermark list from Page Layout=>Watermark, (or other Word 2007 Building block gallery), even to the
'Built-in' categorylist.

Using Page Layout=>Watermark=>Custom Watermark, type in your text, or insert a picture, etc, then when go into the header and select
the watermark item.

Then as Suzanne mentioned use Alt+F3 to bring up the 'Create New Building Block' dialog. While defining the new 'building block'
entry you can choose

- The gallery that will show the preview of your watermark, which in this case could be one of the built in galleries, such as
Watermark, Custom Watermark,Header or Custom Headers

- Choose an existing category (categories divide previews in galleries into groups. within that gallery

- Choose the template that you want to store the building block/Watermark in (i.e. use Building Block.dotx or Normal.dotx if you
want it available in all documents, choose another open template if you want it available only when a certain template is in use).

When naming your building block and choosing a category note that categories, including the one named 'Built-in', are displayed in
each gallery alphanumerically as do the entries within each category.

Once you have saved your entry to, for example, the Watermark gallery, open a new document and use Page Layout=>Watermark to see if
the preview appears and if choosing it puts your watermark into the new document in the header, without the need for you to actually
go to the header. If you wanted to place the watermark where you are in the document, say for a single page, right click the
preview and choose 'Insert at Current Document Position'

While in the gallery preview if you want to rename or recategorize an entry you can right click on a preview and use either:

Edit Properties - to go directly the dialog for that entry
or
Organize and Delete - to go to the Building Block Organizer


This takes you to the same dialog as
Insert=>Quickparts=>Building Block Organizer

As Suzanne mentioned you can also reuse your watermark by typing text in your document the name or part of the name (if it's unique)
in your document then pressing Alt+F3. You can also, if you choose give your Watermark its own keyboard shortcut via
Office Button=>Word Options=>Customize=>Keyboard
and selecting the 'Autotext' category after you first preview the watermark in the gallery.

===============
Thanks, I appreciate the information/suggestion, but how would I do that?
Renee >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Thanks, Bob. I had a sneaking suspicion that it was probably possible to
create custom watermarks in Word 2007; I should have checked on that while I
was looking at the other stuff. <g>

 

[docciboy]

You can't add it to the built-in watermarks, but you can save it as a
Building Block or AutoText entry.

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