OFF2000: How Office 2000 Manages Templates

ID: Q240216

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Office 2000
Microsoft Excel 2000
Microsoft PowerPoint 2000
Microsoft Access 2000
Microsoft Outlook 2000
Microsoft Word 2000

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SUMMARY

Microsoft Office 2000 saves in one location all of the new custom template files that you create in any Microsoft Office applications.

This article explains the location of templates in Office 2000, how the New dialog box (on the File menu, click New) shows available templates, and the registry settings that control where to find your custom templates.

MORE INFORMATION

All Microsoft Office templates fall into one of four categories. When you click New on the File menu, the Office application you are using looks in the following locations for templates that belong to that application:

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 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 two locations, depending on whether Microsoft Office 2000 has been installed on Windows 95/98 or Windows NT.

Windows 95/98 and Windows NT 4.0:
C:\<Windows Folder>\Profiles\<username>\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
Windows 95/98 (without profiles):
C:\<Windows Folder>\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

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. To do this, do one of the following:

NOTE: Changing where your new templates are saved by using either of the following methods will change where all Microsoft Office application templates are saved.

Use Microsoft Word to Change Where Office Templates Are Saved

On the Tools menu, click Options.

On the File Locations tab, click User templates and click Modify.

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.

Click OK or Close to close the Options dialog box.

Use the Office 2000 Shortcut Bar to Change Where Office Templates Are Saved

Right-click a blank area of the Office 2000 Shortcut Bar, and then click Customize on the shortcut menu that appears.

On the Settings tab, click to select the User Templates location, and then click Modify.

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.

In the Customize dialog box, click OK.

The changed path is noted in the Windows registry and is used the next time 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 ship with the Microsoft Office 2000 Resource Kit. For more information about this, 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. For more information, please see the article listed in the "References" section later in this article.

Workgroup Templates Location

The templates 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 common templates used throughout your workgroup or company. The Workgroup Template Location normally is a read-only shared network folder.

In addition to checking your default User Templates Location for existing templates, Office 2000 applications check 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 shipped with Office 2000 and appear in the New dialog box (on the File menu, click New). Depending on the type of installation performed, all of the templates may not have been installed on your hard disk. However, when you click New on the File menu, each Office 2000 application displays the templates as available.

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

You can remove installed templates by starting the Office 2000 installation program and setting the template group to "Installed on First Use." This effectively removes the templates from the hard disk, and they once again become advertised templates. All Office "installed" templates are installed to the following folder by default:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\<Language ID Number>

NOTE: The language ID number is a four-digit code representing the language types currently installed. For example, the US version of Office 2000 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.

IMPORTANT: The Microsoft Office applications do not recognize a custom template 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 you modified is also removed. The proper 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 2000 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

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys and Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT, you should also update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).

Microsoft Office 2000 uses two registry keys in which to record the "User Templates Location" and the "Workgroup Templates Location." Both of these settings are recorded in the following Windows registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\General

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 applications know where to 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.

REFERENCES

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

Q210884 WD2000: General Questions and Answers on the Location of Word 2000 Templates

Additional query words: OFF2000

Keywords : kbdta
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo