Edit MS Word default template to save time and get better branding
Posted on February 25, 2009 at 5:34 am
Every MS word document is based on a certain template. The template determines how headlines look, the size, color, font of text, page layout and margins and so on.
By customizing the default template you can save a whole lot of time spent on formatting and also you can insert your brand characteristics so that they will automatically appear in each document you write. The best thing is that it is really easy to do, so let’s get started.
Locate the default template
To get to the default word template, first change the folders view to show hidden files. Open “my computer” > tools > folder options > view > Under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders.
(Don’t forget to change it back to do not show hidden files and folders after you’re finished.)
Go to the default template
- Open a new Word document.
- Click the office Button
and chose Open. - Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\your user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
- Double click normal.doc
Customize
Great, the hard part is over. All we have to do now is design the document as we would normally do. The only different is that once we save it, the new design will automatically apply to all new documents we create.
(To go back to the original default template design, simply change the name of the file from “normal” to something else. The next time you open Word, it’ll recreate the default template.)
Here are some examples to changes you can do:
Headings
Start with the headings. Right click “heading 1″ and click modify.
Change its size, color, font, and so on. To add a nice gray shading, under modify, click format > border > shading, and set the Style to 5%, as shown in the image below.
Font
Change the font style to Arial and increase its size to 12 (I wouldn’t change its color or character spacing, but you could do that if you like).
Page layout
If you prefer bigger writing space, decrease the margins. Go to Page Layout > Margins > choose one of the available predefined margins or customize them by clicking custom margins…
You can change other page layout elements like its orientation (portrait or landscape), size (ranging from letter to A6 size, or a custom size) and more.
Add Brand characteristics
Add brand characteristics, such as logo and contact details to your default template.
Logo
To add your logo to the document header or footer, double click the upper margin (for header) or lower margin (for footer). You should see the Design tab. Under Insert, click picture to choose your logo.
Contact details
Next to the logo, add your contact details.
To separate the footer (or header) text and images from the rest of the document, while in the footer (header) editing mode, go to the Home tab and add top or bottom border.
Watermark
Finally, to add watermark, which is a transparent image or text at the background of the document, go to Page layout tab and choose Watermark under Page Background. You can write something, such as the name of your company, or add an image, such as your logo.
Save
Don’t forget to save before you close the template.
Several templates
You can create more than one template, for different uses. To do that, open a regular new word document and customize it as you like. When you’re finished, click F12 (shortcut for “save as…”), and in the save as… dialog box, change save as type to word template.
To open a new document based on a template, click the office bottom > new > my templates and choose the template you want.
Eyal Sela is the author of the productivity and Internet blog ProductiveWIse. He is a social media virtual assistant and a freelance Internet-projects manager.
» Filed Under MS Office Tips
Related Posts
- Insert a Watermark in Word 2010
- Add a Watermark to an Microsoft Word Document
- Add Headers and Footers to an Excel Worksheet
- How to Use Styles in Microsoft Word
- Create OpenOffice Writer Templates
Wow, very detailed and useful. I like it.
I need to know how to delete a template in Vista. I have a template that comes up when I open word and when I click on new page, The same template comes back up. I can’t get to my word doc.
Can I set page color in the default template ?
hi,thanks for the detailed instructions, for the follow up question, how bout the old files, how can i use my new Word template on my old files? thanks
I too would like to save a page color in the template. Does it allow me to do this?
Olá amigo. Muito bom, mas passo por problema diferente com template: Tenho quase 19000 arquivos onde mais de 12000 possuem o caminho do template na rede apontando para um endereço não mais existente, ok? O problema é que ao tentar abrir qualquer um destes arquivos, no office 2003 me retorna verificação de virus e no 2007 mostra que tenta abrir de um caminho que já não mais existe, e isto em ambos os casos no mímnimo 3 minutos para abertura. Fiz aplicação em C# para tentar reverter isso e locar template para Normal.dot. Funciona até certo ponto, pois devido a quantidade de arquivos e o tempo de espera acaba travando a aplicação. Pergunto: Como posso alterar em lote o caminho do template padrão, e, de preferência sem a necessidade de abrir o word para isso, pois aí demanda para cada arquivo o tempo mínimo de 3 minutos. Como resolver isso amigão? Ahgradeço muito a sua ajuda.
Wilson Dutra
This is a good article. I have a business and pretty much use Word solely for customer invoices, business letters, etc. I will setup a default template that has my business logo and contact info in the footer!
Thanks
Thomas
“The template determines how headlines look, the size, COLOR, font of text, page layout and margins and so on.”
Might want to remove the word color since for some reason MS Word will NOT let you change the page color in the Normal.docx file