Opening templates from the Word Open menu

[Fraser Page]

Our office's frequently used documents are a huge mess. I'm trying to fix
this which mostly means converting all of our 'templates' from Word files
into Word templates and cleaning up styles and formating. All fine so far.
(... although I wish I could figure out how to get rid of style sets, themes,
numbering and list library entries, etc that I don't want anyone to use,
that's another matter...)

But here's the problem:
The entire office opens files from within Word. I swear there are people
here who don't have the slightest idea what Window Explorer is or that you
can use it to navigate to and open files. And when you open template files
from within Word the default behavior is to open the template. That is, you
end up editing the template, not a new document based on that template. And
that kind of defeats the purpose of templates.

Is there any way I can force templates opened from within Word to open as
new documents?

Thanks

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Don't "open" the template. Use the appropriate dialog for your version of
Word.

Word 2000 and earlier: File | New... opens the New dialog, from which you
choose the appropriate template.

Word 2002 and 2003: File | New... opens the New Document task pane, and
"Templates: On my computer..." opens the Templates dialog, which is
identical to the New dialog.

In any of these versions of Word, you can add a toolbar button to open the
New/Templates dialog directly. In Word 2000 and earlier, this is a simple
matter of adding the FileNew command (as opposed to the FileNewDefault
button that creates a new document based on Normal.dot). In Word 2002 and
2003, you have to use the FileNewDialog command; for more, see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/CustomizingWord2002.htm

In Word 2007, get to the New dialog using Office Button | New | My
Templates... or add the New Document or Template command to the QAT.

Double-clicking on any template in the New/Templates dialog will by default
create a new document based on the template. This assumes that you have the
templates stored in the default Templates folder or a subfolder of it.

 

[Fraser Page]

Thanks for your reply Suzanne.

I was really hoping there'd be some sort of template lock-down type setting
I could apply.

Opening from New | Templates means our users have to know that a template
exists for a document they're trying to open. It makes sense for our most
commonly used templates to be in this menu, but we have several hundred other
less used 'templates' organized into sub-folders on our file server that
would clutter the menu beyond usability if they were included.

I think the best option in this case is New | New from existing...

Even still, deeply ingrained behaviors are hard to change. I've no doubt
many of our users will continue using Open to access templates. Is there no
way I can prevent users from accidentally saving their changes to the
template file? How about setting permissions to Read Only or something like
that?

We're using Office 2007. What's this QAT that you mention?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The QAT is the Quick Access Toolbar. Click the arrow at the end of it to
customize it.