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So, you know that you can create a template to reuse for new, similar documents. You can save page layouts, page content, styles, AutoText entries, macros, and toolbars in a template. You can save shortcut keys and menu customizations in a template.

But, what about when you want all of those customizations to be available in documents that are not based on your custom template?

Well, I'm glad you asked :) Templates are not just for documents! You can create a template that's entirely about customizing how you work in Word, regardless of the document you're working on.

Sure -- the Normal template (Normal.dot) is designed for this purpose. But in reality, lots of people work at companies where you don't have access to save your changes to Normal.dot -- or another custom template (to which you don't have access) may be used as the default template. And, even if it appears that you can save your own customizations to Normal.dot, those customizations might be lost when the company updates Normal.dot or their custom global template for everyone.

Instead, create your own template for customizations and save it so that it will be available to any document that you -- and only you -- work on. Here's how to get that done in a snap ...

Create a template for your customizations

Just as you would if you were creating a document template, start with a new blank document and save it as a template. To do this, on the File menu click Save As. In the Save As dialog box, select Document Template as the file type and give your template a name. Notice that, when you choose the document template file type, your Save In location moves to the Templates folder. You do not need to save it here -- for now, save it wherever is convenient for you to access it.

Add Your Customizations

You can now customize your menus, keyboard shortcuts, create custom toolbars, add macros, or add AutoText ... any of these that you want to have available to all of your documents.

To add menu or toolbar customizations, when you open the Customize dialog box (available on the Tools menu or from the right-click menu available in the toolbar area), choose your template's name from the Save In drop-down list.

To add keyboard shortcut customizations, select your template from the Save Changes In drop-down list in the Customize Keyboard dialog box (available by clicking the Keyboard button in the Customize dialog box).

To add AutoText to your template, select your templates name from the Look In drop-down list on the AutoText tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box (available either through Tools, AutoCorrect Options or Insert, AutoText, AutoText.)

Save Your Customizations as a Global Template

A 'global template' in Word is one with settings that are available to all of your documents, regardless of their attached document template.

Technically, you can save a template anywhere and make it a global template by adding it in the Templates and Add-Ins dialog box on the tools menu. However, depending on your security settings and where you save the template, you might need to do more work than necessary this way (such as loading the template each time you start Word).

Instead, save the template to your Word Startup folder and it will automatically be available to you regardless of the document you're working on, without any extra work. The startup folder is an automatically trusted source for your customizations.

Note: Once you save your template to your Startup folder, you'll need to exit and restart Word before you'll see the changes. Note also that Word is the default email editor in Outlook, so just closing all Word windows won't necessarily exit Word.

Need help finding your Word startup folder?

By default, your Word 2003 startup folder is:

C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup

HOWEVER -- many companies customize this (and some add-in programs customize this as well ... so even if you're working on your own, double-check this location if you aren't sure of it).

To find your startup folder, on the Tools menu click Options and then click File Locations. Select Startup from the list. You probably can't see the entire file path in this dialog box ... if that's so, click Modify to see the path in the Modify Location dialog box. If you expand the drop-down list labeled Look In, you can see the entire path.

Need more help?

If any of that doesn't quite work for you, or I've left off an instruction you need ... post a comment and I'll try to help. Happy Customizing! :)

Posted by Stephanie

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