Opening a .dot in 2008

M

MC

Can anyone confirm this?

If so, I'd say it's a bug.

Every time I use Office 2008 to open a Word .dot file I created in
Office 2004 it *duplicates* the file!

The solution is to open (and inadvertently duplicate) the template, then
Save as a .dotx file.

Weird.
 
J

John McGhie

No, actually, it is not a bug, but it is a changed behaviour :)

When you double-click a template in Word, you are SUPPOSED to get a new
document, "based on" (and "attached to") the template.

When you use File>Open, you are supposed to open the template directly for
editing.

This behaviour has been wrong in Mac Word going back a few versions.
Someone thought the old behaviour was "Mac Like". Well, it may have been,
but it also meant that it because impossible to "use" templates on the Mac
in a corporate setting.

So with Office 2008, the behaviour has been corrected. If you double-click
a template (no mater where it is...) you'll get a new document. If you use
File>Open, you will edit the template.

This is a God-send for the corporate crowd, where templates will be
scattered in dozens of different folders around the network, not neatly
contained in "My Templates". The old behaviour meant that unless the
templates were in "My Templates" or a single "Workgroup Templates" folder,
the user was completely unable to use them!

Cheers


Can anyone confirm this?

If so, I'd say it's a bug.

Every time I use Office 2008 to open a Word .dot file I created in
Office 2004 it *duplicates* the file!

The solution is to open (and inadvertently duplicate) the template, then
Save as a .dotx file.

Weird.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
 
M

MC

John McGhie said:
If you double-click
a template (no mater where it is...) you'll get a new document.

That is what I expect... an untitled document. What I was getting was a
new file with the the word "Copy" in the name... and I had no idea it
was being created. I ended up with dozens of the things.

It only happened when I opened a .dot file, not with a .dotx...
 
J

John McGhie

Make sure the template in question is not marked as "Read Only" or as
"Stationery".

Double-click should send an "Open" command to Word, and Word should
intercept that and think "I know this is a template, I should 'Create new
from template' instead".

Sorry...

That is what I expect... an untitled document. What I was getting was a
new file with the the word "Copy" in the name... and I had no idea it
was being created. I ended up with dozens of the things.

It only happened when I opened a .dot file, not with a .dotx...

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
 

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