How to create a global template

I read this on the web somewhere:

"Another approach that can be useful is to save custom toolbars and toolbar/menu customizations in an add-in (another global template). Create a new template, make your changes there (making sure that "Save in" in the Customize dialog is set to your new template and not Normal.dot), and then save the template to Word's Startup folder (the path for which is given on the File Locations tab of Tools | Options). This will cause your add-in to be loaded every time you start Word; your customizations will be available to all documents, and you won't have to worry about losing them if Normal.dot becomes damaged and you have to blow it away."

I'd like to know if I can export my customizations in my current Normal.dotm into a new Normal.dotm and make that a Global Template; or: can I copy my Normal.dotm to the Startup location and use that to start up from as my new Global Template? If so, Can I further customize that Global at will?

Yeah, I wrote it :-)

Don't get yourself confused: Normal IS a global template.  In Word 2011, it's named Normal.dotm and has the .dotm file type, not the .dot file type.  It must have, to work with Word 2011.

A Global template is a template that is loaded at Word startup and is available to all documents open in that copy of Word.  Normal template is one.  If you want customisations to be available to every document this user opens, automatically whenever Word starts, then Normal is a good place to put them.  There is no advantage in having a separate global template.

However, Normal template is (and must remain...) read/write and available to be changed at any time by the user.  Each user has their own copy of Normal, and there is no way to prevent them changing it at any time (without making Word very unstable and prone to crashing).

So in a corporate workgroup setting, if you want to create special macros, toolbars, autotexts or styles that you want all users to have available for specific kinds of documents, but which you do not want any users to be able to change, that's the best use for a global template.

Another use is where you want various commands or code to be available to all documents regardless of the template you used to create a new document.  If you create a new document and do not specify a different template, the new blank document will be modelled on the Normal template.  It will be "attached" to the Normal template, and any code or toolbars used will come from Normal template.

On the other hand, if you install a global template, its code and toolbars will be available to any new document created in Word, regardless of which template was used to create the new document.  The user could then choose any template as the model for their new document, yet still have the corporate macros and toolbars available.

Now for the complex bit:  DO NOT copy your Normal Template as a Global Template.  That way lies a world of hurt.  If you do not change the name, Word will warn you that Normal Template has been loaded twice, and you will get a deadlock.  If you DO change the name, any code, toolbars or autotexts in both templates will load twice and you will get lots of crashes, hangs, and "context errors" which will mean you do not know which "instance" of a toolbar or macro you are updating.

So if you are going to create a global template, you need to be fairly sure that you do not have the same "thing" in both.

You can create a template by saving a file as a document of type "Microsoft Word Template" -- just Save As.  Or you can quit Word and re-name your Normal.dotm.  Start and quite Word again, and it will create a new, totally blank default Normal.dotm.  You can re-name that to be your Global Template.  And that's what I usually do, because I like to know that there is "nothing" in the base global template before I begin customising it.  Of course, I then re-name Normal.dotm back to what it was at the same time, so I get my Normal back.

To bring a global template into use, you can use Tools>Templates and Add-ins to "Add" a global template.  If you do, that global template will remain in use for that session of Word.  It will appear in the list and you can re-enable it whenever you need it.

If you want it to be loaded automatically at Word startup, then you should place it in the Word Startup folder.  The "Application" startup folder is in /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Startup/Word.  Anything in there will be automatically loaded any time any user of the computer starts Word.  You can also create a "User" Startup folder by using Word>Preferences>File Locations>Startup to set a location.

Yes, you can continue to update and customise a global template after you create it.  You simply have to set your "Customisation Context" by adjusting the "Save In" entry when customising things. And, of course, ensure that your user ID has read/write access to the global template wherever it is stored.

If you are going down this path, work slowly and methodically, and keep a record of what you are doing.  You must avoid getting the same-named "thing" in two places at once, or Word will become very unreliable, and trouble-shooting the issue is extremely difficult.  Unless you have kept a record of what you have stored where, there is no easy way to find out what is causing the crashes.

For a single user on a single computer, I would not bother with global add-ins unless you do a LOT of customisation and are likely to blow your Normal template up frequently.  If you do a lot of customisations, there is perhaps a benefit in having your important customisations set into a read-only global add-in that won't get broken. Otherwise, the complexity is not worth it :-)

Hope this helps

Click on "mine" here or above to see the Screen shot:

Mine has a fair number of customizations

Versions that YOU create (i.e. separate files named differently) will be fine.  Any form of "automatic" versioning, either from Word or the OS, is the kiss of death for a template.

Some software tries to create a "delta" of a Word file.  You can't do that: it's a binary object and is indivisible.  Even with the XML versions, if you attempt to apply a delta you will inevitably blow the document/template up...

I don't know what "Format Global" means either, I don't know where you are seeing that.  It may mean you have two toolbars called "Format" and one is in a template named "Global".

Cheers

Thanks. I sort of grasp this, but will need to re-read this to make sure that I do. I've had to rebuild corrupted Normals in the past, and it was not much fun. 

Mine has a fair number of customizations (there are others you can't see from the image obviously)

Another consideration is back-ups. I use different back-up systems, so it is possible to retrieve versions and hopefully the earlier one will be uncorrupted. in the past at times I couldn't locate successfully the one I needed and so rebuilding was the only option. Ideally versions ought to protect against corruptions as well as anything. But I wonder if the reason I failed to find what I wanted in the past was that I didn't see what I now do: "Format-Global". I don't know how this happened still. Any idea what this means? I have TWO toolbars: Formatting and the one I like with my customizations.