Word Mobile App - Are Personal Templates not Available?

[Jill McDevitt]

I am trying to set up a Sales Group using Office Mobile Apps and they have several Word and Excel documents that they use to fill out information for each customer they visit.

 I have had them set up Templates in the client versions of Word/Excel instead of the cumbersome method of copying a file and doing a rename each time.  So they are all set to use the templates from a PC.

But now - I can't for the life of me figure out how they can pull up one of their templates in a Mobile app?  Is it just not possible?  If not, has anyone heard if it's on a enhancement list?

Thanks for the help.

Jill McDevitt

[#2]

@Jill McDevitt 

Hi Jill,

Landed on your post researching the same thing. Looks like it's been quite a while since you asked the question, so I hope you have found a solution, but in case you haven't, here's a workaround I found while struggling with the same issue.

When you save your template through 'File' > 'Save As', make sure to save it directly to the cloud (i.e. selecting the 'OneDrive' SharePoint account), NOT on a local or network drive (i.e. selecting the 'This PC' or 'Browse' options). You will then be able to open those templates through the mobile app and web app.

In the case of an individual account like mine, the default saving path was 'OneDrive - Personal\Documents\Custom Office Templates' but you should be able to create or pick a path that is accessible to your team members. Alternatively, you could use the 'Share' function.

Tip: I also noticed that if you pin them in your 'Recent Files' history of the desktop app, they will automatically appear as pinned in your mobile and web app 'Open' page.

The mobile and the web app will both open the template file itself, not a blank document based on the template, so you just have to go to 'Save As' right away to save a copy with the desired name and format. You could also share the files with read-only access, I guess.

I hope this helps—and I hope Microsoft fixes this soon too. These are the kind of workarounds I hear people have to do all the time with Google Docs. I picked Microsoft 365 specifically for all the advanced functionalies (templates, styles, themes, macros...) that GDocs didn't have, but with the lack of functionality of the Microsoft web and online apps + all the time wasted finding my way around all the inconsistencies between platforms, the pain might be outweighing the gain...

Good luck!

Best Regards,

AK