What Is Template In Word Document

What is the relationship between a Microsoft Give-and-take document and its template?

Quick Reference:

When a Give-and-take document is created, it inherits 3 things from its parent template:

styles
content
page settings.

Thereafter, a template sits in the groundwork and provides four things to a document:

macros
AutoTexts (in Word 2003 and earlier) or Building Blocks (in Word 2007 and Word 2010)
toolbars (in Word 2003 and before) or UI customizations (including Ribbon customizations) in Word 2007 and Word 2010
keyboard shortcuts.

Every Microsoft Word document is based on a template, whether yous choose a template explicitly or not.

Understanding the human relationship betwixt documents and templates is crucial to understanding how Discussion works.

Preamble: How is a certificate based on a template?

When you create a new certificate, Microsoft Give-and-take bases your new document on a template.

Word 2010

In Discussion 2010, y'all create a new document by clicking the blue File push and choosing "New".

If you lot click "Bare document" in the "Available templates" section, Word volition base your new document on the Normal template. Or, you can choose to base your document on a different template.

Word 2007

In Word 2007, you create a new document by clicking the Role button (as well known, irreverently, as the pizza push button) and choosing "New".

You then see the "New Document" dialog box. If you click "Bare document", Word volition base your new document on the Normal template. Or, you can choose to base your document on a different template.

Word 2002 and Word 2003

In Word 2002 and Word 2003, if y'all practise File > New, y'all come across the New Document task pane.

If you cull "Blank certificate", Word volition base your document on the Normal template.

If yous click "On my calculator…" in Give-and-take 2003, or "Full general templates…" in Give-and-take 2002, you see the full dialog box showing all your Discussion templates and you can choose a template.

Word 2000 and before

In Word 2000 and earlier, yous create a new document by doing File > New. And you see a dialog box presenting y'all with several templates from which to choose.

If you choose "Blank document", Word will base your document on the Normal template.

What's the 'Normal template'?

Unless you lot specify a unlike template, Give-and-take bases all new documents on the Normal template. Up to and including Give-and-take 2003, the Normal template was called normal.dot. In Word 2007 and Give-and-take 2010 information technology is normal.dotm.

Office one: What happens when a certificate is born?

When a certificate is created, information technology inherits iii things from its parent template:

styles
content (eg text, pictures, a fax header, a form to fill up in, the outline of your monthly direction report, any content in headers and footers)
page settings (eg margins, newspaper size, newspaper orientation, settings for headers and footers).

Just for the record, if a document is created from a template other than the Normal template, the document has no connexion to the Normal template. That is, no styles in the Normal template affect the document, no content in the Normal template is brought into the document, and no page settings in the Normal template affect the document. A new document simply inherits these things from its parent template.

The moment a document is created, it loses its connectedness with its parent with respect to styles, content and folio settings.

When you create a document in Word, it inherits three things from its parent... and then severs the connection.

Figure 1. When y'all create a document in Word, it inherits three things from its parent… and then severs the connection.

Just to be really articulate, a document inherits styles from its parent template, just as people inherit genes. So at the moment a document is created, the styles of its parent template are copied to the document. From that moment, a document simply has access to the styles stored in the document.

A document can no more use the styles of its parent template than you and I can use the genes of our parent humans.

This lack of connection goes both means.

Changing a document won't change the template information technology's attached to

You lot can change the margins in a document and the change won't affect the template.
Y'all can add, delete or change styles in a document, and information technology won't touch the template.

Changing the template won't change documents attached to the template

You can modify the margin in a template, and information technology will touch documents yous create from this template in the future. But it won't bear on existing documents attached to that template.
You can add, delete or modify styles in a template, and the change volition impact documents you create from this template in the time to come. But information technology won't affect existing documents.

Part 2: What happens after a certificate is born, while it is being edited?

Once a document has been created, the template to which information technology is attached takes on quite a different role.

When a document is being edited, its template sits in the background and makes four things bachelor to a document:

ii kinds of functionality:
- macros
- AutoTexts (expanded and re-named as Building Blocks in Word 2007 and Give-and-take 2010)
2 ways to access the functionality:
- toolbars (up to and including Give-and-take 2003) and UI (including Ribbon) customizations (in Discussion 2007 and Word 2010)
- keyboard shortcuts
  (that is, a keyboard way and a mouse mode).

When a document is open in Word, its template makes four things available to the document.

Figure 2. When a document is open in Discussion, its template makes four things available to the document.

A man parent at first provided genes to its child, and it later takes on a role of making things bachelor to its children (transportation, laundry, meals<g>).

Similarly, a Word template at first provided styles, content and page settings to its child document, and it later takes on a role of making things available to documents (macros, AutoTexts/Edifice Blocks, toolbars/UI customizations, keyboard shortcuts).

Word manages all this automatically and quite cleverly.

Note that macros, AutoTexts/Building Blocks, toolbars/UI customizations and keyboard shortcuts in a template are not automatically copied to the certificate when a certificate is created. This is unlike from the style Excel works, where everything in an Excel template is copied to the workbook.

Further data

Y'all can attach a new template to a document, and you can copy styles, content, page settings, macros, toolbars and keyboard shortcuts from a template to a document. See What happens when I attach a new template to my document? or How exercise I copy content and settings from a template to a document?

The toolbars/UI customizations, keyboard shortcuts, macros, autotexts or Building Blocks you can access at whatsoever one time depend on (a) the toolbars or UI customizations, keyboard shortcuts, macros and autotexts or Building Blocks in the document's parent template and (b) the toolbars or UI customizations, keyboard shortcuts, macros and autotexts or Building Blocks in whatever add-ins. For the record, the discussion "styles" was not in either of those lists. For more information nigh add-ins, run into What do Templates and Add-ins store?.