Word vX templates ?

[Beth Rosengard]

I'm missing something here, or is it just a difference between Word X and
Word 2004? When I switch to a different user account, open Word, change the
default font, close up and then switch back to my main user, the default
font has not changed (as it shouldn't). Obviously, there is a separate
Normal for each user.

You're saying that this is different in Word X because Normal is stored in
the templates folder and the templates folder is shared by all users (as
opposed to having Normal stored in each user's discrete MUD in 2004)?

Or (without changing file locations as you've suggested) does Word X
compensate by creating a second Normal for the second user and making it
accessible via the Project Gallery ­ which is the situation that Norm (the
OP) has described. This would actually make some sense (I think). Normal
2, then, would actually be a custom template.

Elliott, are you listening? I figure you must have Word X on a backup
computer, right ;-)? If you create a second user, does a second Normal show
up in the top level of the Project Gallery (after, for instance, opening
Word in User 2, changing the default font, saving, and going back to User
1)?

And, Norm, hold off for a bit. I need clarification on the above before
responding to your last post. Otherwise, follow John's instructions and
change your file locations.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>

 

[Elliott Roper]

Elliott, are you listening? I figure you must have Word X on a backup
computer, right ;-)? If you create a second user, does a second Normal show
up in the top level of the Project Gallery (after, for instance, opening
Word in User 2, changing the default font, saving, and going back to User
1)?

As far as I can see, normal does not show up as such in any project
gallery. There is a "word document" shown in the "blank documents"
section regardless of where normal is hiding. Furthermore, in one
account, where normal was down one level in Templates/My Templates
there was no further "word document" offered. I conclude that the
project gallery and normal are disjoint concepts.

I was not able to do a *proper* scientific test of that because my Word
X is heavily modified with global templates (precisely to avoid the
consequences of normal going feral) and I don't want to undo that.

I found that the unprivileged second user uses and modifies the normal
in Applications/Mirosoft Office X/Templates regardless of what I set in
that user's file locations preferences. However, if I deleted that
normal, started Word again, the new normal was created in the user's
own template folder that I had earlier created, and from then on
changes were made to that one.

And, Norm, hold off for a bit. I need clarification on the above before
responding to your last post. Otherwise, follow John's instructions and
change your file locations.

I figured Norm was in good hands, so apart from maybe having to hide
the normal in Applications/Mirosoft Office X/Templates while setting
things up in preferences file locations for each user, he should be
good to go.

PS Norm. Did you mum and dad know about Microsoft Office when they
named you?

Yours sincerely,
Global Add-in

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Lemme see if I can clarify this...

In the Project Gallery there is an entry called "Word Document". This entry
causes Word to create a new blank document using its "Global Template".

That global template may or may not exist as a file. If you have never
customised it in any way, it won't exist as a file: hitting that "Word
Document" button will cause Word to generate a new blank document from its
built-in defaults.

The situation where a user has "never customised" Normal is so rare as to be
unimaginable on the Mac. But it can happen, so I include it for
completeness.

If Normal does exist, it will be in the location indicated by
Word>Preferences>File Locations>User Templates. You can set that location
to any folder on your system. When you have changed the location,
Immediately Quit Word to force it to save the new location back to disk.

If you DO move User Templates, you MUST get rid of the old Normal template
before restarting Word. Putting it in the trash is not good enough. You
must either drag it to the desktop or change the name of it.

If you don't re-name or move the template, Word will keep right on using the
old one. If Word is not quit when you do that, Word will write the old one
back to disk from memory when you quit Word.

Once you have moved User Templates in Preferences, you should have a copy of
Normal in the location you specified. Obviously, you have to log in as each
user and make the change for each user.

The problem is that if Word ever starts and finds a copy of the Normal
template in the old location, that's the one it will use. So you must
change the user template location in each user ID, then quit Word.

Then you must get rid of the old old Normal.

After that, Word will create the new Normal in each user's MUD when it
restarts.

It's not difficult to give each user their own templates, but you do have to
keep your mind on the job and do things in the correct sequence, because
Word will always look in the default location first, and use Normal from
there if it finds it. That will prevent it creating the new one.

Cheers

As far as I can see, normal does not show up as such in any project
gallery. There is a "word document" shown in the "blank documents"
section regardless of where normal is hiding. Furthermore, in one
account, where normal was down one level in Templates/My Templates
there was no further "word document" offered. I conclude that the
project gallery and normal are disjoint concepts.

I was not able to do a *proper* scientific test of that because my Word
X is heavily modified with global templates (precisely to avoid the
consequences of normal going feral) and I don't want to undo that.

I found that the unprivileged second user uses and modifies the normal
in Applications/Mirosoft Office X/Templates regardless of what I set in
that user's file locations preferences. However, if I deleted that
normal, started Word again, the new normal was created in the user's
own template folder that I had earlier created, and from then on
changes were made to that one.


I figured Norm was in good hands, so apart from maybe having to hide
the normal in Applications/Mirosoft Office X/Templates while setting
things up in preferences file locations for each user, he should be
good to go.

PS Norm. Did you mum and dad know about Microsoft Office when they
named you?

Yours sincerely,
Global Add-in

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Thank you, John! I think this is a great explanation. (And thanks,
Elliott; I knew you'd be listening .) I would only clarify one thing for
Norm's benefit:

A Global Template is a template that applies to all new documents unless you
specify otherwise.

Word's Normal template is a Global Template; in fact, you might call it the
"Super Global Template" since Word uses it as a scratch pad of sorts to
store various data. (It is because of this that Normal tends to corrupt
sooner or later; and that's the reason that John, Elliot and other
professional writers usually use their own Custom Templates if they're going
to change a lot of defaults and customize heavily.)

So when John speaks of Word creating a new blank document using its Global
Template, for all *practical* (if not theoretical/conceptual) purposes, he's
referring to the Normal template (or at least to what will become the Normal
template as soon as it's been customized by the user).

Beyond that, you should have everything you need in John's post below in
order to be able to set up your and your wife's separate templates. Post
back with specific questions and good luck!

Beth

 

[Norm]

Beyond that, you should have everything you need in John's post below in
order to be able to set up your and your wife's separate templates. Post
back with specific questions and good luck!

Beth, thanks for taking the additional time on this. I appreciate.

I don't pretend to understand all of the recommendations/tips yet but
I'll re-read those response posts and try again.

Follow-up questions if someone has time:

NOTE: If these are answered by the related posts, please disregard
these questions. In that case hopefully my re-read will bring better
understanding.

But if not covered there, my questions are:

I had never looked at the File Locations preferences until I ran into
this problem of second user templates.

If there is only one user (e.g. my wife's or my Mac):

What is the recommended File Location setting for User and Workgroup
templates in MS Word vX.

And same question if two (or more users).

And what are Workgroup templates. I notice on our single user Macs there
is no File Location preference but there is on the Mac with two users.


Thanks again very much.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Norm,

If there is only one user (e.g. my wife's or my Mac):

You will get different answers from different people on this question .
When I was in Word 2001 (as a single user), which uses the same default
location for Normal as Word X (the Templates folder), I just left it where
it was.

However, many people think it is advisable to move Normal to the MUD (which
is exactly what Microsoft did in Word 2004). The reason is that it's more
secure there. The MUD is not touched when doing a removal/reinstallation of
Office, for instance. It contains all your personal user data (like your
Entourage database, containing all your contacts, email addresses, etc. ­ if
you use Entourage).

Also, when you do backups, you would naturally back up the MUD but you could
more easily forget to back up the My Templates folder and Normal. (For this
reason, many people also use File Locations to move their My Templates
folder to the MUD.)

So it's a matter of choice. I left all my templates in their default
locations because I was used to backing them up there. In retrospect, I
probably should have moved them to the MUD.

What is the recommended File Location setting for User and Workgroup
templates in MS Word vX.

The above answers the User templates part of your question. As for the
Workgroup templates folder, single users who are not sharing documents
wouldn't need to use it. I never did. But this is a better question for
John.

And same question if two (or more users).

See John's post.

And what are Workgroup templates. I notice on our single user Macs there
is no File Location preference but there is on the Mac with two users.

Right, because a single user isn't sharing documents with anyone usually.
If you do, however, as you and your wife may want to do, then you would
enable the Workgroup templates folder for this. But you would store it
somewhere accessible by both of you.

HTH. John will probably have more to add.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Norm:

If there is only one user (e.g. my wife's or my Mac):

What is the recommended File Location setting for User and Workgroup
templates in MS Word vX.

It utterly does not matter. Whatever you specify Word stores internally as
a "number." It doesn't matter what the number is.

However, bad things will happen if you specify a location that is not
reliable or not fast. Anywhere in the local hard disk is good. Workgroup
templates must be on the network somewhere.

If you do not have a reason to move the template folders, don't

I work with beta versions of Microsoft Office, so I move my local templates
to a different location so that I can efficiently nuke the current version
without losing my templates.

And same question if two (or more users).

Put the User Templates folder somewhere within the signed-in user's home
directory. It doesn't matter where, but the trash can would not be a good
choice

Put the Workgroup templates somewhere on the common network file server
where both users can get to them.

And what are Workgroup templates. I notice on our single user Macs there
is no File Location preference but there is on the Mac with two users.

Workgroup templates are those templates you want all users in the office
work group to be able to share. This is where you put all of the customised
letters, faxes, reports and invoices the company uses. Many companies move
all of the Microsoft templates to that location and customise them with the
company's name and address details.

The file location preference is ALWAYS "present" (i.e. It always exists).
However, if it is set to the "built-in default location" it is not displayed
in the user interface.

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Norm]

The file location preference is ALWAYS "present" (i.e. It always exists).
However, if it is set to the "built-in default location" it is not displayed
in the user interface.

OP Back.

Thank very much you. I'll give it a try.

I wish I could remember exactly what I did last time but.... :-(

What ended up happening on our two user Mac when I changed the File
Locations preference was that all but 4 lines of the Project Gallery
documents and folders were missing on one of the users. So I must have
done something wrong. I'll try it again.

Appreciate the help.

 

[Norm]

That global template may or may not exist as a file. If you have never
customised it in any way, it won't exist as a file: hitting that "Word
Document" button will cause Word to generate a new blank document from its
built-in defaults.

OP back.

Thanks to all for patiently helping on this problem I was having setting
up templates for two users.

Bottom line, it worked!!!!!!!! So thanks very much.

Just a curiosity follow-up question: is there a global or Beth's Super
Global Normal template for each user if there are multiple users?

I followed, I think , John's instructions and now have the File
Locations preferences for both users pointing to their
User/Documents/Microsoft User Data folder. In that folder is now a
Normal template and a My Templates folder with defined templates
therein. I think this is what you suggested and it is what I wanted. And
I've set the workgroup File Location preference set to the MS Word
Application folder where they are originally installed and this resulted
in the Project Gallery showing all of those templates as it did for a
single user when first installed.


So.....again with two users are there two global templates (the ones now
in the users' folders) or is there still somewhere built into MS Word a
Super Global "above" these two Normal templates? Hope that question is
clear.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[Norm]

Does that help?

Got it. Understand.

I didn't know if there was some type of default template built into MS
Word that would not show up as doc file.

Thanks for all the help and education. I appreciate.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Norm:

Word has three "levels" of template:

1) Global

2) Add-in

3) Attached.

Think of them like trading banks -- they form a chain of "lenders" where the
*Global* template is the "Lender of Last Resort". Whatever Word needs, it
looks up the chain, and takes the first one that it finds from whichever
template it finds it in first.

Since Word always looks up the list in the same order, we can use this to
make, for example, a different style definition available to specified
documents.

Generally, we can ignore Add-ins and Attached Templates...

Very few users of Word employ "add-ins". Sometimes a program you buy will
insert one to support its special features. PDFMaker.dot from Adobe Acrobat
is an example. There are one or two others. For ordinary users of Word,
Add-Ins can largely be ignored: you don't put them there and chances are you
will never be aware that they are there. Word solution developers such as
myself make liberal use of them, but it's not common.

Even fewer ordinary users of Word employ Attached Templates. You can attach
a template to a document to make available macros or toolbars or autotext
entries that apply only to that class of document. Again, they're common in
a professional writing or production workgroup, but not in ordinary
corporate or home use.

So for your purposes, you need consider only the Normal template. Normal is
a global template, and it is usually the ONLY global template. Beth's
description of the built-in instance of Normal as a "Super-Global" template
is interesting.

Nature hates a vacuum, and computers hate not knowing! Word has a complete
copy of Normal built in (using American defaults). However, the moment you
change *anything* (other than your mind...) Word writes all of the settings
from its built-in Normal out to disk as a file. This happens almost as soon
as Word starts on the Mac. There are *thousands* of pieces of information
involved, and Normal is where Word stores them.

Word writes Normal to the User Templates location. That is not accessible
to any other user than the logged-in user. It's important that other users
cannot get to Normal, because it contains all of your personal settings. If
another user can get to it, you will get a different-looking copy of Word
every morning, and lotsa crashes during the day

So, to answer another of your questions: Yes, it is possible to have all
three kinds of template shared to multiple users. However, it makes your
installation, setup and configuration quite complex if you do. What I have
described above is a simplistic summary of things: the reality is a lot more
complex. If you want to share templates among users, you can, but you have
to plan for and manage the complexity if you do.

Hope this helps

Got it. Understand.

I didn't know if there was some type of default template built into MS
Word that would not show up as doc file.

Thanks for all the help and education. I appreciate.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Norm]

Hope this helps

It does but....... my curiosity has me.....

So, on my single user Mac or on our two user Mac there is a Normal
doc/template for each user (one and two Normal docs respectively).

I'm curious to know what happens if a Normal Global template gets
trashed for example. Does Word create another Global (Normal) one for
that user and if so does that Normal have the styles/settings (whatever
I should call it) that are part of Word's "hard wired" defaults that
never change?

Hope that question makes sense.

Thanks for the education.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Norm:

Yes. You've understood perfectly

* There *should* be a Normal for each user.

Stupid system administrators sometimes set things up with a shared normal,
causing great grief for themselves and their users. So: There "should" be
individual Normals for each user -- Word doesn't force you to do it that
way, but if you don't you will regret it.

* There cannot be "no" Normal. So Yes, if Word can't find a user's Normal
template, it will create a new one.

* Yes, whenever Word creates a new Normal template, it simply writes its
hard-coded defaults into a file and calls them Normal template. We use this
to replace the Normal template when it gets broken. Simply re-name the old
one, Word will create a new one when it next starts. You can then copy the
non-broken components from the renamed Normal into the new one.

Cheers

It does but....... my curiosity has me.....

So, on my single user Mac or on our two user Mac there is a Normal
doc/template for each user (one and two Normal docs respectively).

I'm curious to know what happens if a Normal Global template gets
trashed for example. Does Word create another Global (Normal) one for
that user and if so does that Normal have the styles/settings (whatever
I should call it) that are part of Word's "hard wired" defaults that
never change?

Hope that question makes sense.

Thanks for the education.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Norm]

Yes. You've understood perfectly

Ahh... But must be due to the teacher(s) not the student. Thanks.

* There cannot be "no" Normal. So Yes, if Word can't find a user's Normal
template, it will create a new one.

OK... got it.

Now a couple of last....I think ......questions.

I think I understood from earlier in this thread that a User's Normal is
viewed as the "Word Document" in the Project Gallery and is also the New
Blank Document if starting from the menu. Correct?

Is the User's Normal used for anything else?

On my Mac, I changed the defaults for "Word Document" a long time ago so
don't remember how or when. But in doing so I changed the settings of my
Normal. Correct?

I then have a few templates. They are in My Templates in the Project
Gallery.

Do you recommend doing what I did of changing the defaults in the Word
Document so whenever I create a new document it uses that or is it
better to leave that alone and always go to a base template one defines
that would reside in the My Templates?

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

John's description is not - unfortunately - correct. It should be - and is
for Word 2004 and for Word Windows back through several versions, but not
for Word X that you have. Not unless you set it up differently than the
default (see below).

Word X (and also previous Classic versions of Word Mac) create the Normal
template in the default location - which is in the Templates folder to be
found in the Microsoft Office v. X folder usually (and correctly) placed in
your /Applications folder. That means that since there is only one
/Applications folder for the computer, accessed by all users, this only one
Templates folder, the same Normal is used by all users - a recipe for
disaster on a multi-user machine. Office v. X was released in a rush back in
late 2001 by Microsoft to help Apple in its introduction of OS X. They did
not make fundamental changes and, in this case, did not adapt to OS X's
introduction of rigorous multi-user environment.

When Office 2004 was released, Microsoft still did not localize the whole
Templates or Startup folders to separate users, but they did at least do so
for the Normal template: each OS user has its own Normal template, now
placed by default in the user-specific ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data
folder (also used for Entourage identity databases, etc.) Each time an
individual user launches Word for the first time, his or her very own Normal
template with basic defaults is created in his/her very own MUD folder in
(user) ~/Documents folder. A much better system.

But Word lets you locate your own "User Templates" folder wherever you want.
Even in Word X. This is a preference in Word/Preferences/File Locations, as
John has already described. And the preference file - saving all preferences
including this one - is located in the user sector of your computer
(~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (10) in the case of Word X).

So if each user sets the User Templates file location Preference to his/her
own location of choice somewhere in his/her user sector of the computer (and
a "Templates" folder in the ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data folder would be
a very good location), each user will now have his/her own separate
Templates folder. In the case of Word X - since this user Templates folder
is also the location for Normal - each user will now have his/her own Normal
template too. This is a very good idea, for all the reasons given by John.
So that's what you should do. (Readers with Word 2004 should also consider
doing the same thing - not for Normal template, which is already
user-specific - but to keep user control if you use any other templates in
Templates folder.)

Is that a little clearer?

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
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From: "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 16:04:31 +1000
Conversation: Word vX templates ?
Subject: Re: Word vX templates ?

Hi Norm:

Yes. You've understood perfectly

* There *should* be a Normal for each user.

Stupid system administrators sometimes set things up with a shared normal,
causing great grief for themselves and their users. So: There "should" be
individual Normals for each user -- Word doesn't force you to do it that
way, but if you don't you will regret it.

* There cannot be "no" Normal. So Yes, if Word can't find a user's Normal
template, it will create a new one.

* Yes, whenever Word creates a new Normal template, it simply writes its
hard-coded defaults into a file and calls them Normal template. We use this
to replace the Normal template when it gets broken. Simply re-name the old
one, Word will create a new one when it next starts. You can then copy the
non-broken components from the renamed Normal into the new one.

Cheers

It does but....... my curiosity has me.....

So, on my single user Mac or on our two user Mac there is a Normal
doc/template for each user (one and two Normal docs respectively).

I'm curious to know what happens if a Normal Global template gets
trashed for example. Does Word create another Global (Normal) one for
that user and if so does that Normal have the styles/settings (whatever
I should call it) that are part of Word's "hard wired" defaults that
never change?

Hope that question makes sense.

Thanks for the education.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Norm,

Now a couple of last....I think ......questions.

Whew ;-).

I think I understood from earlier in this thread that a User's Normal is
viewed as the "Word Document" in the Project Gallery and is also the New
Blank Document if starting from the menu. Correct?

Yes. Consider them just different names for the same thing.

Is the User's Normal used for anything else?

Do you mean are there any other variations on what it's called within the
Word application? Not that I can think of.

If you mean, does Normal have any function other than storing the user's
settings and preferences, then yes, but they don't directly concern the
user. IOW, as I think I said before, Word uses Normal as a sort of scratch
pad to keep track of all kinds of things. But this needn't concern you
except in so far as this means that Normal is prone to corruption (about
which, more below).

On my Mac, I changed the defaults for "Word Document" a long time ago so
don't remember how or when. But in doing so I changed the settings of my
Normal. Correct?

They're the same thing. If I were you, I would just forget the different
terminologies. Microsoft was trying to make things simpler, not more
confusing . If in the Project Gallery, Microsoft had given you the
option of creating a "document based on Normal" instead of a "Word
Document", a total newbie user would not have known what they were talking
about! It was just simpler to call it a Word Document in that context.

So stop confusing yourself . Just call it Normal (or the Normal
template) in all contexts. We'll know what you mean!

I then have a few templates. They are in My Templates in the Project
Gallery.

Do you recommend doing what I did of changing the defaults in the Word
Document so whenever I create a new document it uses that or is it
better to leave that alone and always go to a base template one defines
that would reside in the My Templates?

There's nothing wrong with changing the defaults in the Normal template.
Most users do, myself included. But you need to keep in mind that Normal is
prone to corruption because it can carry so much baggage.

So if all you want to do is change a few defaults in Normal ­ changes that
will not be difficult to replicate if your Normal becomes corrupt and you
have to trash it (so that Word can create a new "virgin" Normal) ­ go ahead.
I think I have changed 3-4 defaults in my Normal template which I use for
short docs that don't require much formatting.

But for specialized purposes (like letterhead) or long documents that will
be heavily customized, by all means create your own Custom templates and
store them in My Templates, as you seem to be doing already.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>

 

[Norm]

Now a couple of last....I think ......questions.

Whew ;-).[/QUOTE]

Got it. Thanks for this additional info...and for the prior, too.

Thanks.

 

[Norm]

So if each user sets the User Templates file location Preference to his/her
own location of choice somewhere in his/her user sector of the computer (and
a "Templates" folder in the ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data folder would be
a very good location), each user will now have his/her own separate
Templates folder. In the case of Word X - since this user Templates folder
is also the location for Normal - each user will now have his/her own Normal
template too. This is a very good idea, for all the reasons given by John.
So that's what you should do. (Readers with Word 2004 should also consider
doing the same thing - not for Normal template, which is already
user-specific - but to keep user control if you use any other templates in
Templates folder.)

Is that a little clearer?

Yes. Got it. Thanks.

And the above was what I understood and I did following John's posts. I
believe John might have said that the default location for the User
templates were in MUD rather than in the /Applications/Microsoft Office
folder in the case of Word vX but other than that what he said and I
followed worked for me.

Appreciate the info on differences between versions. While I sometimes,
often , wish I was back on 5.1a, I'm not going in that direction so
the info will help when I upgrade from vX at some point.

Thank you.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Norm:

The short answer is "Yes". To both questions...

When you create a document from a template, the new document is a partial
copy of the template. What that means is that every setting, style, and
format option in the new document is copied from the template.

If you do NOT specify a template when creating a new document, Word USES the
Normal template for the purpose.

If there is no "Normal" template, it uses its internal copy. There cannot
be "no" Normal template, and a new document must be built from "something".

So: a new document is EITHER a copy of your Normal template, OR it is a
copy of the template you specified when you created it. It cannot be a
mixture. Not ever.

So the answer to your question is: "Yes", if you want new settings to be
used in your new documents, you must change the templates from which you
create those new documents.

However, if you are in the habit of creating a "New Word Document" or
hitting the "Blank Document" button, and THEN "attaching" a different
template, then the new document will be a copy of Normal, not its attached
template. If you want to use anything from an attached template AFTER
document creation, you have to explicitly bring it in, either by copying or
by using the Organiser.

Cheers

Ahh... But must be due to the teacher(s) not the student. Thanks.


OK... got it.

Now a couple of last....I think ......questions.

I think I understood from earlier in this thread that a User's Normal is
viewed as the "Word Document" in the Project Gallery and is also the New
Blank Document if starting from the menu. Correct?

Is the User's Normal used for anything else?

On my Mac, I changed the defaults for "Word Document" a long time ago so
don't remember how or when. But in doing so I changed the settings of my
Normal. Correct?

I then have a few templates. They are in My Templates in the Project
Gallery.

Do you recommend doing what I did of changing the defaults in the Word
Document so whenever I create a new document it uses that or is it
better to leave that alone and always go to a base template one defines
that would reside in the My Templates?

Thanks for all the help.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Norm]

However, if you are in the habit of creating a "New Word Document" or
hitting the "Blank Document" button, and THEN "attaching" a different
template, then the new document will be a copy of Normal, not its attached
template. If you want to use anything from an attached template AFTER
document creation, you have to explicitly bring it in, either by copying or
by using the Organiser.

John, thanks for the help and answers.

Understood it except for the part about "attaching" a template. Either
I've never done that or do it without knowing. I either start with the
Word Document (which I've modified somehow in the distant past) or one
of my defined templates in my My Templates folder.

Thanks again.