Streamlining template display in New Document

[Jens Gyldenkærne Clausen]

Hi all. I'm developing a set of Word 2007 templates to a department. I
plan to place them on a shared template location so the people in the
department can reach them.

My problem is that the graphical presentation of "My templates" (where
the shared templates appear) is way different than the default "New
document" view with "Installed templates". It's o.k. that the
preinstalled 117 templates are shown in a large window with thumbnails
of each template - but when I change to "My templates" I get a
completely different dialog box, much smaller, without titles (only
file names) and no thumbnails. Is this really the only way I can
present my own templates or have I missed something.

I would like to have the possibility to create template groups, make
nice titles to them and perhaps also add a thumbnail - is that possible
in any way? Otherwise I would prefer to disable the fancy "new
document" dialog - 99 percent of the preinstalled templates are never
used anyway.

Any help appreciated.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Of course, once you use a template, it gets added to the Blank and Recent
templates group and there you will see a thumbnail of the template if it has
been saved with a preview (Office button>Prepare>Properties>Document
Properties>Advanced Properties>Summary>Save preview picture.

Failing that, you could create a userform with tabs on it with buttons on
each tab that represented each template, with a picture on the button that
amounted to a preview and code in the button click event to create a new
document based on that template. Depends upon how fancy you want to get.

For distributing your templates, I would recommend that you see the article
"Distributing macros to other users" at:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/DistributeMacros.htm

In another forum, fellow MVP, Jonathon West, who created that article has
provided the following reasons from not locating templates on a shared
network location:

1. There is a bug in Word regarding opening documents based on network
templates. If the document is emailed to a customer who doesn't have the
template, Word sometimes waits several minutes before giving up hope that
the network location will respond. While a hotfix is available, there is no
guarantee that a recipient of the document outside the company has had the
hotfix installed. Documents based on local templates do not have this
problem. (This reason by itself is usually enough to persuade customers that
network templates are a Thoroughly Bad Idea)

2. If the templates are all locally installed, laptops do not need a
separate different setup to cope with when they are disconnected from the
network. (This reason also very much appeals to network admins!)

3. Response speed is generally better for locally installed templates.

4. If templates are all locally installed, word-processing can continue even
if the network or server has gone down. (Quite enough of a company's
operations will grind to a halt anyway without unnecessarily adding
word-processing to the list.)

5. Installing templates locally reduces network traffic, improving response
times for those other applications which must use the network.

6. Local templates can easily be updated using a login script or other
mechanisms that guarantee that Word will not be open and locking files when
the update occurs.

7. If a user manages to mess up a template, he has only done so on his own
PC, and doesn't affect other users.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Graham Mayor]

I am pretty sure that there are no changes you can make to the default
dialogs; however you can divide your templates into groups by making sub
folders in the shared Workgroup folder and the My Templates dialog will have
tabs to match the sub folder name. This is essentially the way the new
document dialog has worked in all Word versions.
If you use a personal template to create a document then that template is
added to the graphical 'recent templates' display.
Do not even think of sharing the user templates folder. You cannot share the
Normal.dot file among multiple users in Word
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811468
Use the Workgroup folder for your shared document templates.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Jens Gyldenkærne Clausen]

Graham Mayor:

I am pretty sure that there are no changes you can make to the default
dialogs; however you can divide your templates into groups by making sub
folders in the shared Workgroup folder and the My Templates dialog will have
tabs to match the sub folder name.

Thanks for the answer (also to Doug Robbins). The subfolder option is
nice to have - although I still believe that a gallery option like the
fancy display of the templates from Office Online would be a huge
improvement. It's o.k. to have a ton of general purpose templates, but
within a company it would be reasonable to think that there could be a
ton of specialized templates - and a nice graphical way to orhcestrate
these in categories would in my view be much more useful than the
default list of random diplomas, CV's, letter templates etc.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Create your own Gallery using a UserForm.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP