How to manage the Office XP templates in Office programs

This step-by-step article describes the location of templates in Microsoft Office XP, how the Templates dialog box (click General Templates in the task pane) displays available templates, and the registry settings that control where to find your custom templates.

Office XP saves in one location all of the new custom template files that you create in any Microsoft Office program.

All Office XP templates fall into one of four categories. When you click General Templates in the task pane, the Office program that you are using looks in the following locations for templates that belong to that program:

• User templates location
• Workgroup templates location
• Advertised and installed templates location
• Non-file-based templates location

User Templates Location

Newly created or modified templates are saved in a folder in your profile directory. The folders under your profile contain configuration preferences and options that are specific to you. Everything that needs to roam with you is stored in these directories as part of your profile.

Your templates can be in one of several locations, depending on whether Microsoft Office XP is installed on Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows NT, or Microsoft Windows 2000.

Microsoft Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0:Microsoft Windows 98 (without profiles):Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP (upgraded from Windows NT 4.0):
Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP (non-upgrade installation):

When you create a new template or customize an existing one and save it, the template is saved, by default, in one of these locations. You can change the location where your new templates are saved.

How to Change Template Location

To change the location where your new templates are saved, use one of the following methods.

Note If you use either of the following methods to change the location where your new templates are saved, you will also change the location where all Microsoft Office program templates are saved.

Use Microsoft Word to Change Where Office Templates Are Saved

1. Start Microsoft Word.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. On the File Locations tab, click User templates, and then click Modify.
4. In the Modify Location dialog box, change the Folder name or Look in box to the folder where you want to save your new templates, and then click OK.
5. Click OK or Close to close the Options dialog box.

Use the Office XP Shortcut Bar to Change Where Office Templates Are Saved

1. Right-click a blank area of the Office XP Shortcut Bar, and then click Customize on the shortcut menu that appears.
2. On the Settings tab, click to select the User Templates location, and then click Modify.
3. In the User Templates Location dialog box, change the Folder name box to the folder where you want your new templates to be saved, and then click Add.
4. In the Customize dialog box, click OK.

The changed path is noted in the Windows registry and is used the next time that you want to save a new template. For more information, please see the "Changes in the Windows Registry Settings for User and Workgroup Templates" section later in this article.

Note A network administrator can change the location where your new templates are saved by using the policy templates that are included with the Microsoft Office XP Resource Kit. For more information, please see your network administrator.

You can also create custom tabs that appear in the New dialog box (on the File menu, click New) by creating a new folder within the Templates folder in your profile. Tabs with the same name as your new folder appear in the New dialog box and allow you to further categorize your new templates.

Workgroup Templates Location

The templates that are saved to this location are basically the same as the templates that are saved in your User Templates Location, with the exception that the location is usually a shared folder on a network drive. By default, the Workgroup Templates Location is not set to a specific folder and is blank.

Note Your network administrator may set a shared location as a source from which to provide templates that are used throughout your workgroup or company. The Workgroup Template Location usually is a read-only shared network folder.

In addition to looking in your default User Templates Location for existing templates, Office XP programs look in the Workgroup Templates Location for additional templates that may exist.

For more information about the Workgroup Templates Location and how to share a template with your workgroup or company, please see your network administrator.

Advertised and Installed Templates

Advertised templates are templates that are included with Office XP and appear in the Templates dialog box when you click General Templates in the New Document task pane. Depending on the type of installation, all of the templates may not be installed on your hard disk. However, when you click New on the File menu, each Office XP program displays the templates as available.

When you select to use a template, the Office program determines whether the template is installed. If the template is installed, a new document based on the template opens. If the template is not installed (but just advertised), the program displays a prompt asking whether you want to install it.

You can remove installed templates by starting the Office XP installation program and setting the template group to Installed on First Use. This effectively removes the templates from the hard disk, and they again become advertised templates. All Office "installed" templates are installed to the following folder by default: Note The language ID number is a four-digit code representing the language types currently installed. For example, the U.S. version of Office XP installs a "1033" folder, the Arabic version installs a "1025" folder, and the German folder is "1031". Microsoft Office supports many other languages, and it is possible to have multiple languages installed at one time. Therefore, you may have a Templates folder that contains several of these language ID folders.

Tabs created for advertised and installed templates in the New Office Documents dialog box are built into Microsoft Office and cannot be renamed. After all the templates for a tab are uninstalled, the tab is removed.

Important The Microsoft Office programs do not recognize a custom template that you may have created if you place it in this folder. Only "installed" templates can be used in this folder. However, if you open an "installed" template and make changes to it, the modified template can be used in this folder. Also remember, if you remove Microsoft Office at any time, the "installed" template that you modified is also removed. The correct location for your custom templates is in your profile templates folder. Please see the User Templates Location section earlier in this article for more information.

Non-File-Based Templates

These are the templates that Microsoft Office XP programs use to create new workbooks, documents, databases, and slides. As the name suggests, there is not a physical template from which these special files are created. Each program has the information necessary to create a new file of the necessary type.

For example, if the global template (Normal.dot) does not exist in Microsoft Word with which to create a blank document, Word uses its internally stored settings to create a new blank document.

Changes in the Windows Registry Settings for User and Workgroup Templates

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Microsoft Office XP uses two registry keys to record the "User Templates Location" and the "Workgroup Templates Location". Both of these settings are recorded in the following Windows registry key: The "User Templates Location" is stored in the "UserTemplates" string value.

The "Workgroup Templates Location" is stored in the "SharedTemplates" string value.

Initially, these string values do not exist until you make a change to the default locations for your custom templates. By default, all Microsoft Office programs look for their "installed" templates, so no string value is required for their location.

If you change the "User Templates Location" back to the default location as listed in the User Templates Location section of this article, the "UserTemplates" string value is removed from the registry. However, if you change the "Workgroup Templates Location" back to its default, the "SharedTemplates" string value is retained in the registry.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: