Forum Discussion
How to setup Templates in Word 365 and Outlook 365
Thank you for your last reply Doug Robbins:
I am sorry for the delay in replying to your last response.
I have been trying get a version of Office 2007 o a laptop so that I can take screen prints and show the sequence of screens which would illustrate what I am after from Word 365. Unfortunately, since I have already moved to Microsoft 365 on my laptop, I do not want to go back to Office 2007 to show what I was able to do before in Office 2007. Presently, I am trying load Office 2007 on an old laptop running XP, so that I can go through the screen print sequence with you.
I wonder if you would have access to an Office 2007 system, so that we can work on the procedure used in it remotely.
RE. THE PROCEDURE YOU SUGGESTED:
==========================
I have tried the procedure you outlined and have been able to attach another template (in addition to the Normal Template which is automatically attached) file (.dotx) to the new Word document that I had on screen.
However, I shall to visualize and document what was possible in Word or OUtlook 2007, from memory:
1. Assume you have a document open in either Outlook or Word 2007, eith a new document or an existing document. It already has Normal.dotx loaded iand attached to it.
2. To attach and (override) the normal a custiom template that you have already created and put in a specific directory, the following procedure would be used:
2.1 Click of either Home or Format menu item (depending on whether you are in Outlook or Word).
2.2 One of the items on the Ribbon would be, if I recall correctly, Select or Find or Set Styles.
2.3 Upon clicking a pop-up would display, showing among other items, a list of named Template files (which will be found in a specific directory (eg. QuickStyles, or Templates or other), I do not recall exactly which one, and which are stored as named dotx or dotm files).
2.4 You are now at liberty to click on one of those Template names to select the template you would like to attach, so as to modify the "style set" to be used in your open document.
2.5 After this is done, with the cursor on a line in the open document, the clicking on one of the particular styles displayed in the ribbon will cause the format of the line to reflect the format in the Template file that you had selected when you attached the specific template to the open document on your screen, e.g.
2.6 If your text line in the document had the paragraph format Normal, and you clicked on the ribbon item say Header 1, the format of the line would change to the following:
Say, if it was the first selection, it would display as
1. sacAcsdvcsadvasdv
If you clicked on the second line, it would display as
2. asdAFafASDCSA
2.7. A similar scenario would apply to the application of other styles such as Header 2, Header 3, List Style, etc., which would all be selected from the ribbon (the ribbon would only display the name of style and not any sample description, contrary to the scheme used in Office 365, which provides a sample of the applicable format below the style name). Note that the style format in each case would be derived from the Template document that you had attached to the document, which could be changed very simply by selecting a different Template name from the list of Templates, using the procedure described earlier.
Dioug Robbins, I hope I have described what I was able to do in Office 2007
and am not carrying "Coals to Newcastle" in describing the features of Office 2007.
I shall still try to send you a set of the screen prints I mentioned earlier in this email.
Meanwhile, if you can come up with an Office 2007 package and try out its Template attachment features for Outlook and Word, it may clarify the scenario better than the above rudimentary description of it.
Thank you for your patience. Regards.
Thank you for your last reply Doug Robbins:
I am sorry for the delay in replying to your last response.
I have been trying get a version of Office 2007 o a laptop so that I can take screen prints and show the sequence of screens which would illustrate what I am after from Word 365. Unfortunately, since I have already moved to Microsoft 365 on my laptop, I do not want to go back to Office 2007 to show what I was able to do before in Office 2007. Presently, I am trying load Office 2007 on an old laptop running XP, so that I can go through the screen print sequence with you.
I wonder if you would have access to an Office 2007 system, so that we can work on the procedure used in it remotely.
RE. THE PROCEDURE YOU SUGGESTED:
==========================
I have tried the procedure you outlined and have been able to attach another template (in addition to the Normal Template which is automatically attached) file (.dotx) to the new Word document that I had on screen.
However, I shall to visualize and document what was possible in Word or OUtlook 2007, from memory:
1. Assume you have a document open in either Outlook or Word 2007, eith a new document or an existing document. It already has Normal.dotx loaded iand attached to it.
2. To attach and (override) the normal a custiom template that you have already created and put in a specific directory, the following procedure would be used:
2.1 Click of either Home or Format menu item (depending on whether you are in Outlook or Word).
2.2 One of the items on the Ribbon would be, if I recall correctly, Select or Find or Set Styles.
2.3 Upon clicking a pop-up would display, showing among other items, a list of named Template files (which will be found in a specific directory (eg. QuickStyles, or Templates or other), I do not recall exactly which one, and which are stored as named dotx or dotm files).
2.4 You are now at liberty to click on one of those Template names to select the template you would like to attach, so as to modify the "style set" to be used in your open document.
2.5 After this is done, with the cursor on a line in the open document, the clicking on one of the particular styles displayed in the ribbon will cause the format of the line to reflect the format in the Template file that you had selected when you attached the specific template to the open document on your screen, e.g.
2.6 If your text line in the document had the paragraph format Normal, and you clicked on the ribbon item say Header 1, the format of the line would change to the following:
Say, if it was the first selection, it would display as
1. sacAcsdvcsadvasdv
If you clicked on the second line, it would display as
2. asdAFafASDCSA
2.7. A similar scenario would apply to the application of other styles such as Header 2, Header 3, List Style, etc., which would all be selected from the ribbon (the ribbon would only display the name of style and not any sample description, contrary to the scheme used in Office 365, which provides a sample of the applicable format below the style name). Note that the style format in each case would be derived from the Template document that you had attached to the document, which could be changed very simply by selecting a different Template name from the list of Templates, using the procedure described earlier.
Dioug Robbins, I hope I have described what I was able to do in Office 2007
and am not carrying "Coals to Newcastle" in describing the features of Office 2007.
I shall still try to send you a set of the screen prints I mentioned earlier in this email.
Meanwhile, if you can come up with an Office 2007 package and try out its Template attachment features for Outlook and Word, it may clarify the scenario better than the above rudimentary description of it.
Thank you for your patience. Regards.
khsayeed To attach a template to an existing Word document, with the document open, go to the Developer tab of the ribbon and click on the Document Template button to display the dialog shown in my previous response.
Outlook does not have a corresponding facility that would allow the attachment of a different template to a message. If you want to create a message from a particular template, you would need to have that template saved as an .oft file and the easiest way to use such a file is to simply double click on it.
- 2022-12-07
Thank you for your reply Doug Robbins:
I am sorry that I was not thinking about the fact that I was working with an Outlook message and not a Word document when I attached the screen prints.
However, I am a bit confused by what needs to be done to attach a template to an Existing document (not to a New document) or to an existing Outlook message (say opened from then drafts folder in Outlook, since the procedure in the older version of Word was the same for both document type.
Could you please provide a complete sample sequence of the procedure, starting with setting up a structured template in the correct Folder and applying the template to an existing Word document, so as to change its styles to the attached template in Word 365.
Could you please also do the same for an existing Outlook message (say opened from the Drafts folder in Outlook 365 .
This will provide me with a method of proceeding in future, for both types of documents.
Thank you very much. khsayeed Your screen shots are of Outlook, NOT Word.
Further, as I think I advised previously Outlook no longer uses Word for creating and editing messages. Instead, it has its own "Word-like" editor and it could well be that there are some differences as that in Word is likely to be more capable that the one in Outlook.
I am not really sure what it is that you want to do, but in Word, you can still attach a template to a document via the Templates and Add-ins dialog
However, see:
Thank you for your insightful reply Doug Robbins:
I have followed your advice and have gone through the sequence of displaying the screen showing the several Template files in User Templates Folder when editing a Word Document.
However, when clicking on one of the Template files, it opens up a NEW DOCUMENT having the styles identical to those in the Template, along with any text in the template.
In the older version of Word/Office, it was possible to assign the template to the already open file, and the styles in the assigned Template were reflected in the Quick Styles displayed on the Ribbon of the already open document.
I have attached a set of screen prints to show the procedure which was used then, in part only, along a brief explanation below:
1. The first screenshot is the existing Word document.
2. Next, clicking on the Ribbon menu item Change Styles produced a pop-up which showed the menu item Style Set.
3. Next, clicking on the Style Set menu item, brought up another pop-up, not the one shown in the attached screen shot , but a pop-up which included a list of Template Files (from a templates Folder, I do not recall which that folder was). Clicking on one of the items in that list would result in assigning the styles in the selected template, to the document. Also the Quick Styles in the Ribbon would display the same Styles as in the attached Template. I do not recall if there was also a separate item in the pop-up list which would assign the template styles to the Quick Styles displayed in the ribbon.
I would appreciate your comments on how to Assign a set of Styles from a Template to an existing Word/Outlook document .
I look forward to your reply. Thank you.
khsayeed The default location for user templates in Word has always been:
C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates
which you can check via File>Options>Advanced>File Locations and select the User Templates item and then click on Modify so that you can see the full path
I would suggest that you modify the Quick Access Toolbar by adding the New Document or Template command that you will find in the All Commands category.
When you use that button, you will then see the following dialog that is populated with the templates from the User Templates folder (and also the Workgroup Templates folder), with the templates in any sub-folders of those folders appearing as tabs in the dialog.
