[DavidS]

I have a Word 2007 template, for some help files, that is likely to be
tweaked. A number of authors are using the tempalte and creating
hundreds of small help documents. I want to be able to:

1 - Send out an update of the template to the authors and have all of
their documents reflect the changes in the template next time they are
opened.

2 - Receive the files back from the authors and have them update
against the office master version of the template as they are opened.

I can achieve (1) by displaying the developer tab and in the Templates
group, clicking Document Template, then setting the Automatically
update document styles option. However, I cannot get this to default to
being checked. Inevitably users will forget to check this as they
create new documents.

The problem achieving (2) is that the location of the templates folder
is beyond my control on the authors' machines, and the template
location stored seems to be an explicit path
(C:\windows\user\...\help.dotx). Is there any way of replacing this
with a symbolic path (%workgrouptemplates%\help.dotx)???

What other hints have people got for keeping documents linked to
templates in a nice, neat fashion?

Thanks,

David

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi David--

What kind of things are you tweaking? Templates won't really change
anything that is going to make a difference to the content of the help.
Make sure the template serves all your structural and logical needs
before sending it to anyone, and the rest is just cosmetic
presentation. Cosmetic effects aren't worth the frustration of trying
to control multiple authors.

So my advice would be to just handle it on your end. If you want, you
could send the authors your template with instructions, and tell them
what to do if they want to see how their final product would look, but
make it optional.

Your real problem is that "automatically update styles" refuses to
default to "on" for documents created from a template. Someone else may
know the answer to that.

If not, a workaround would be to or ask for help writing a macro that
will go through all the files in a folder and turn on "automatically
update styles". Run it periodically as you receive new help files. Or
make it MANDATORY that your authors check that box.

DavidS wrote:
I have a Word 2007 template, for some help files, that is likely to be
tweaked. A number of authors are using the tempalte and creating
hundreds of small help documents. I want to be able to:

1 - Send out an update of the template to the authors and have all of
their documents reflect the changes in the template next time they are
opened.

2 - Receive the files back from the authors and have them update
against the office master version of the template as they are opened.

I can achieve (1) by displaying the developer tab and in the Templates
group, clicking Document Template, then setting the Automatically
update document styles option. However, I cannot get this to default to
being checked. Inevitably users will forget to check this as they
create new documents.

The problem achieving (2) is that the location of the templates folder
is beyond my control on the authors' machines, and the template
location stored seems to be an explicit path
(C:\windows\user\...\help.dotx). Is there any way of replacing this
with a symbolic path (%workgrouptemplates%\help.dotx)???

What other hints have people got for keeping documents linked to
templates in a nice, neat fashion?

Thanks,

David

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi David:

Daiya's right: the template will have no effect upon what happens in the
help topics, only the style names. The Help system will compile in a CSS
which will replace the formatting in your template.

If you place your template in a network location visible to all users, and
THEN attach your documents to it, and set "Automatically update" then it
will stay stuck while the template remains visible to the users.

To enure this works, attach the template using the UNC Pathname to the
template (\\ServerName\filepath\folder\help.dotx)

Do NOT use Automatically update styles if your help topics contain any list
numbering. If they do, the update will break the numbering each time you
open the topic.

Hope this helps

On 18/1/07 2:07 AM, in article
, "DavidS"
wrote:

I have a Word 2007 template, for some help files, that is likely to be
tweaked. A number of authors are using the tempalte and creating
hundreds of small help documents. I want to be able to:

1 - Send out an update of the template to the authors and have all of
their documents reflect the changes in the template next time they are
opened.

2 - Receive the files back from the authors and have them update
against the office master version of the template as they are opened.

I can achieve (1) by displaying the developer tab and in the Templates
group, clicking Document Template, then setting the Automatically
update document styles option. However, I cannot get this to default to
being checked. Inevitably users will forget to check this as they
create new documents.

The problem achieving (2) is that the location of the templates folder
is beyond my control on the authors' machines, and the template
location stored seems to be an explicit path
(C:\windows\user\...\help.dotx). Is there any way of replacing this
with a symbolic path (%workgrouptemplates%\help.dotx)???

What other hints have people got for keeping documents linked to
templates in a nice, neat fashion?

Thanks,

David


--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

[DavidS]

Thanks Diaya,

The aim is to get the authors to see things in the final format. When I
say help files, these are not going into the Windows help system, but
into a book or website.

I expect that less editing will be required if the authors create the
content and see the final format at the same time. Re-applying the
template at my end is easy, it's keeping the authors up to date with
the latest templates that's going to be hard.

Thanks,

David

Daiya Mitchell wrote:

Hi David--

What kind of things are you tweaking? Templates won't really change
anything that is going to make a difference to the content of the help.
Make sure the template serves all your structural and logical needs
before sending it to anyone, and the rest is just cosmetic
presentation. Cosmetic effects aren't worth the frustration of trying
to control multiple authors.

So my advice would be to just handle it on your end. If you want, you
could send the authors your template with instructions, and tell them
what to do if they want to see how their final product would look, but
make it optional.

Your real problem is that "automatically update styles" refuses to
default to "on" for documents created from a template. Someone else may
know the answer to that.

If not, a workaround would be to or ask for help writing a macro that
will go through all the files in a folder and turn on "automatically
update styles". Run it periodically as you receive new help files. Or
make it MANDATORY that your authors check that box.

DavidS wrote:
I have a Word 2007 template, for some help files, that is likely to be
tweaked. A number of authors are using the tempalte and creating
hundreds of small help documents. I want to be able to:

1 - Send out an update of the template to the authors and have all of
their documents reflect the changes in the template next time they are
opened.

2 - Receive the files back from the authors and have them update
against the office master version of the template as they are opened.

I can achieve (1) by displaying the developer tab and in the Templates
group, clicking Document Template, then setting the Automatically
update document styles option. However, I cannot get this to default to
being checked. Inevitably users will forget to check this as they
create new documents.

The problem achieving (2) is that the location of the templates folder
is beyond my control on the authors' machines, and the template
location stored seems to be an explicit path
(C:\windows\user\...\help.dotx). Is there any way of replacing this
with a symbolic path (%workgrouptemplates%\help.dotx)???

What other hints have people got for keeping documents linked to
templates in a nice, neat fashion?

Thanks,

David

[DavidS]

Hi John,

The problem I have is that the authors are not on the same network and
it's not practical to have them all VPNing just for the templates. We
don't run SharePoint here, which may have helped.

When I said that these are help files, they're not Windows help files,
but will remain in their Word format for the moment.

Do symbols exist for path elements in Word???

Thanks,

David


John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh] wrote:

Hi David:

Daiya's right: the template will have no effect upon what happens in the
help topics, only the style names. The Help system will compile in a CSS
which will replace the formatting in your template.

If you place your template in a network location visible to all users, and
THEN attach your documents to it, and set "Automatically update" then it
will stay stuck while the template remains visible to the users.

To enure this works, attach the template using the UNC Pathname to the
template (\\ServerName\filepath\folder\help.dotx)

Do NOT use Automatically update styles if your help topics contain any list
numbering. If they do, the update will break the numbering each time you
open the topic.

Hope this helps

On 18/1/07 2:07 AM, in article
, "DavidS"
wrote:

I have a Word 2007 template, for some help files, that is likely to be
tweaked. A number of authors are using the tempalte and creating
hundreds of small help documents. I want to be able to:

1 - Send out an update of the template to the authors and have all of
their documents reflect the changes in the template next time they are
opened.

2 - Receive the files back from the authors and have them update
against the office master version of the template as they are opened.

I can achieve (1) by displaying the developer tab and in the Templates
group, clicking Document Template, then setting the Automatically
update document styles option. However, I cannot get this to default to
being checked. Inevitably users will forget to check this as they
create new documents.

The problem achieving (2) is that the location of the templates folder
is beyond my control on the authors' machines, and the template
location stored seems to be an explicit path
(C:\windows\user\...\help.dotx). Is there any way of replacing this
with a symbolic path (%workgrouptemplates%\help.dotx)???

What other hints have people got for keeping documents linked to
templates in a nice, neat fashion?

Thanks,

David


--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

[Daiya Mitchell]

DavidS wrote:
I expect that less editing will be required if the authors create the
content and see the final format at the same time.

Oh. I've never managed authors. I'd be interested to hear more about
how you expect that to operate, just as a matter of curiosity.

Daiya

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi David:

{Sigh} OK, we're going to have to do this the hard way. Now, this may
become complex and time-consuming, and the process is error-prone. You will
be spending a lot of effort on formatting that is going to be simply
discarded. So long as you are comfortable with that...

The basic process is:

1) Define the styles in your template

2) Create an "AutoOpen" macro in the template that sets the "Automatically
update styles on open" property to True. It's a simple one-statement macro:
you can record it. Make sure it's stored in the template that you want to
distribute.

2) Name the template.
It doesn't matter what you name the template, but once you have created a
name, you cannot change it for the duration of the project. Each document
will be attached to the template by its file name. So any variation will
break the link.

3) Place the template in the User Templates location on each user PC
This is the key to it. It doesn't matter where the user templates location
is. It can be in a different location on each user's workstation. It is a
good idea to make the location something easy to find in the user's "My
Documents" folder, because the users are going to have to update the
template in it. It does matter that the template is always in that exact
location, on each user's workstation, and not in any subfolder of that
location. In Word, go to ToolsOptionsFile Locations. There are two
locations the "User Templates" and "Workgroup Templates". You can use
either one, but you must use the same one (either User or Workgroup) on all
the workstations. You can set the location anywhere you like, but it must
be a location that will never "go away", so it should be on the local drive,
not a network.

4) Get the authors to create each of their topic documents from the
template.
They should use FileNewFrom Template... If they do, the template will
remain attached. However, they can create their files by double-clicking if
they wish, it doesn't matter. When they create their topic documents, Word
copies all the styles from the source template. The actual style sheet that
controls a Word document is stored within the document itself. The topic
document then makes no further reference to the template, so it doesn't
matter what the formatting in the template does from now.

5) The authors send the topic documents back to you.

6) When you open the documents on your workstation, they will automatically
adopt the formatting of your template.
You must ensure that you have a copy of the same-named template in your
template location. If you do, Word will automatically re-attach to your
local copy of the template.

7) When you want to update the formatting, email the new template to the
authors and let them overwrite their copy of the template with it.
Make sure the macro remains in place.

Now, some caveats:

* If you do the macro right, the "Automatically update" property will be
set the second time the author opens that topic document. If you suspect
that the authors will only open each topic once, then you need to copy the
macro and name the copy "AutoNew" so it sets the property when they first
create the topic document.

* The authors must work entirely on their local hard drives. They cannot
keep either the template or their documents in their email program. You
must get them to understand this: users these days try to do everything
within their email program. They can't do that, it breaks the link to the
template. Nor can they use "removable" drives. Word searches a hierarchy
of locations for a document's attached template. When it finds it, it
stores the location in the document, and that's where that document will
always look for its template.

* It's critical to put the template in one of the "Trusted" locations,
either User Templates or Workgroup templates.

Those locations override most others, regardless of where there may be other
copies of the same-named templates. There is one location that overrides
the trusted locations: the actual folder in which the topic document
resides. If there's a same-named template in there, that's the one Word
will always use. You need to explain this to the authors, and ensure they
know to REMOVE any same-named template from the document folder, otherwise
their topics will never see the updates.

* You want Auto-series macros to operate. If the template is in any
location other than the Trusted locations, Macro Security will disable the
macros.

OK, some of this you will know how to do. Some of it you may need more
detail on. Get back to us for the bits you need more on.

Cheers

On 19/1/07 11:08 PM, in article
, "DavidS"
wrote:

Hi John,

The problem I have is that the authors are not on the same network and
it's not practical to have them all VPNing just for the templates. We
don't run SharePoint here, which may have helped.

When I said that these are help files, they're not Windows help files,
but will remain in their Word format for the moment.

Do symbols exist for path elements in Word???

Thanks,

David


John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh] wrote:

Hi David:

Daiya's right: the template will have no effect upon what happens in the
help topics, only the style names. The Help system will compile in a CSS
which will replace the formatting in your template.

If you place your template in a network location visible to all users, and
THEN attach your documents to it, and set "Automatically update" then it
will stay stuck while the template remains visible to the users.

To enure this works, attach the template using the UNC Pathname to the
template (\\ServerName\filepath\folder\help.dotx)

Do NOT use Automatically update styles if your help topics contain any list
numbering. If they do, the update will break the numbering each time you
open the topic.

Hope this helps

On 18/1/07 2:07 AM, in article
, "DavidS"
wrote:

I have a Word 2007 template, for some help files, that is likely to be
tweaked. A number of authors are using the tempalte and creating
hundreds of small help documents. I want to be able to:

1 - Send out an update of the template to the authors and have all of
their documents reflect the changes in the template next time they are
opened.

2 - Receive the files back from the authors and have them update
against the office master version of the template as they are opened.

I can achieve (1) by displaying the developer tab and in the Templates
group, clicking Document Template, then setting the Automatically
update document styles option. However, I cannot get this to default to
being checked. Inevitably users will forget to check this as they
create new documents.

The problem achieving (2) is that the location of the templates folder
is beyond my control on the authors' machines, and the template
location stored seems to be an explicit path
(C:\windows\user\...\help.dotx). Is there any way of replacing this
with a symbolic path (%workgrouptemplates%\help.dotx)???

What other hints have people got for keeping documents linked to
templates in a nice, neat fashion?

Thanks,

David


--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410


--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410