Updating the Word Global Template for all staff

[Mandy Lightfoot]

Hi

I have created a Template with Styles, branding, language, logos, headers, footers and Quick parts, and want to have this as the company's default template.

I should mention that I have published it to the Organizational Assets library, so staff can select it from the company template library, but I want it to be used when they click on BLANK

I have updated my Templates folder C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

and it works very well for me - how to I get this rolled out to the whole company?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

@Mandy Lightfoot 

See the article at http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/templates.htm#sharing for a recommendation on how to share a template in an organization. 

There is no simple way to convince users in your organization to actually make use of the template. Educating users will usually be necessary.

I advise against replacing or manipulating the new blank document template (Normal.dotm) in Word. It stores some of the customizations that individual users may have made, and therefore it is not a good idea to manipulate or replace that template on users' workstations. 

[#3]

Thank you Stefan, I might need to get IT involved to set the default font when they set up the users going forward

[#4]

Hello @Mandy Lightfoot ,

just to add to replacing the "Blank" template. Whenever Microsoft releases updates, they sometimes reach the Normal.dot too, disregarding any company settings, replacing it with MS's settings, despite all IT efforts to prevent that, so I also urge you not to replace Normal.dot.

In my previous company we had, like so many others, different font type, size, spacing etc. in our Normal.dot, which got always replaced with that horrible Calibri, 1.05 spacing, 8pt after settings when Microsoft released some updates.

It's not worth the effort to battle that.

Much better to place your company template into the shared folder your IT provides and inform the users.

[#5]

Thank you - Looks like I will need to do training then :)

[#6]

Mandy - did you find some training? If so, where did you find it? I'm struggling and desperately need to understand the basics to try and remedy the gremlins I installed when creating my templates!

[#7]

No, looks like all the suggestions are to leave the global template alone and rather use a template which contains all the branding info