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.

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(Don’t forget to change it back to do not show hidden files and folders after you’re finished.)

Go to the default template

  1. Open a new Word document.
  2. Click the office Button clip_image003 and chose Open.
  3. Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\your user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
  4. Double click normal.doc

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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.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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.

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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

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Comments

3 Responses to “Edit MS Word default template to save time and get better branding”

  1. Boaz Zemer said on : February 25th, 2009 at 11:05 am

    Wow, very detailed and useful. I like it.


  2. Kathy Moore said on : March 9th, 2009 at 11:42 am

    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.


  3. Bhargav said on : July 12th, 2009 at 2:59 am

    Can I set page color in the default template ?


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