To Template or not to template

Sorry about the corny subject but I couldn't resist.

I am looking for some options adn cleanest solutions.

We have several hundred templates that have let's say the company
president's name and graphic in the header and footer. Every couple of
years we need to change the president's name and we are currently having to
edit each of the templates.

What are some solutions that will allow us to make a single change that
affects all the templates but not the documents that have been previously
created by those templates?

You could save the president's name as an AutoText entry and insert it in
the template as an AutoText field. When you change the entry, the field will
be updated. In the documents you create based on the templates, though, you
will want to unlink the field so that the text will not update.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"waybehind" wrote in message
...
Sorry about the corny subject but I couldn't resist.

I am looking for some options adn cleanest solutions.

We have several hundred templates that have let's say the company
president's name and graphic in the header and footer. Every couple of
years we need to change the president's name and we are currently having
to
edit each of the templates.

What are some solutions that will allow us to make a single change that
affects all the templates but not the documents that have been previously
created by those templates?

Suzanne,

Forgive me for I am unfamiliar with AutoText field. I looked into creating
AutoText Fields but not quite sure how they are managed. I am assuming that
I should create them such that they are stored in the Normal.dot. Correct?
If so, then I should open each template, this one last time, and replace the
name with the AutoText and save the template. Then if I create a new
document based off that template, it should be created with the AutoText but
it will require the user to unlink this AutoText prior to saving the file.
Is this correct?

Sorry if I am not making the connections....

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

You could save the president's name as an AutoText entry and insert it in
the template as an AutoText field. When you change the entry, the field will
be updated. In the documents you create based on the templates, though, you
will want to unlink the field so that the text will not update.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"waybehind" wrote in message
...
Sorry about the corny subject but I couldn't resist.

I am looking for some options adn cleanest solutions.

We have several hundred templates that have let's say the company
president's name and graphic in the header and footer. Every couple of
years we need to change the president's name and we are currently having
to
edit each of the templates.

What are some solutions that will allow us to make a single change that
affects all the templates but not the documents that have been previously
created by those templates?

You create an AutoText entry and store it in Normal.dot (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/AutoText.htm). You then insert an
AutoText field (Insert | Field | AutoText) in your template. Whenever you
update the AutoText entry (which requires that you create a new one with the
same name; you can't actually edit them), the field will update. In the
document, you unlink the field (Ctrl+Shift+F9) so that the text entered by
the field is frozen in time (so that letters, when opened at a later date,
reflect the company officers at the time they were written, not the current
ones).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"waybehind" wrote in message
...
Suzanne,

Forgive me for I am unfamiliar with AutoText field. I looked into
creating
AutoText Fields but not quite sure how they are managed. I am assuming
that
I should create them such that they are stored in the Normal.dot.
Correct?
If so, then I should open each template, this one last time, and replace
the
name with the AutoText and save the template. Then if I create a new
document based off that template, it should be created with the AutoText
but
it will require the user to unlink this AutoText prior to saving the file.
Is this correct?

Sorry if I am not making the connections....

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

You could save the president's name as an AutoText entry and insert it
in
the template as an AutoText field. When you change the entry, the field
will
be updated. In the documents you create based on the templates, though,
you
will want to unlink the field so that the text will not update.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"waybehind" wrote in message
...
Sorry about the corny subject but I couldn't resist.

I am looking for some options adn cleanest solutions.

We have several hundred templates that have let's say the company
president's name and graphic in the header and footer. Every couple
of
years we need to change the president's name and we are currently
having
to
edit each of the templates.

What are some solutions that will allow us to make a single change
that
affects all the templates but not the documents that have been
previously
created by those templates?

Suzanne,

Thanks for the input; I will try and test this out. As I look at it though,
the users of the templates must remember to unlink these AutoText fields.
Correct?

Can you think of any other way that I can use templates and pull in this
president name, graphic, and etc., when a userselect to use the template to
create a new document? Is a macro my only answer? I REALLY want to stay
away from macros. Ideally, once the template was select by the user or
opened programatically, Word would dynamically go this this president
information, put it in its proper place in the new document and then sever
all ties back to the source.

Thanks again!


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

You create an AutoText entry and store it in Normal.dot (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/AutoText.htm). You then insert an
AutoText field (Insert | Field | AutoText) in your template. Whenever you
update the AutoText entry (which requires that you create a new one with the
same name; you can't actually edit them), the field will update. In the
document, you unlink the field (Ctrl+Shift+F9) so that the text entered by
the field is frozen in time (so that letters, when opened at a later date,
reflect the company officers at the time they were written, not the current
ones).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"waybehind" wrote in message
...
Suzanne,

Forgive me for I am unfamiliar with AutoText field. I looked into
creating
AutoText Fields but not quite sure how they are managed. I am assuming
that
I should create them such that they are stored in the Normal.dot.
Correct?
If so, then I should open each template, this one last time, and replace
the
name with the AutoText and save the template. Then if I create a new
document based off that template, it should be created with the AutoText
but
it will require the user to unlink this AutoText prior to saving the file.
Is this correct?

Sorry if I am not making the connections....

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

You could save the president's name as an AutoText entry and insert it
in
the template as an AutoText field. When you change the entry, the field
will
be updated. In the documents you create based on the templates, though,
you
will want to unlink the field so that the text will not update.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"waybehind" wrote in message
...
Sorry about the corny subject but I couldn't resist.

I am looking for some options adn cleanest solutions.

We have several hundred templates that have let's say the company
president's name and graphic in the header and footer. Every couple
of
years we need to change the president's name and we are currently
having
to
edit each of the templates.

What are some solutions that will allow us to make a single change
that
affects all the templates but not the documents that have been
previously
created by those templates?

waybehind wrote:
Thanks for the input; I will try and test this out. As I look at it though,
the users of the templates must remember to unlink these AutoText fields.
Correct?

You could do that with an AutoNew macro stored in the document template.
I'm not a developer myself, but it might be a good idea to only have
small wrapper code in each template calling a sub in a central Add-In
(maybe it's possible to have no code at all in the templates and use an
Add-Ins abilities only, not sure if this is feasible here, the .vba
gurus will know a lot more).

I don't think there's any way around VBA (or .net, these days) for
"dynamic" things like unlinking a field. You can do a lot in terms of
query the user for data with field constructs only, but for your task, I
don't think so.

Oh, and if you use a dedicated Add-In, pays to store the AutoText there
as well instead of Normal.dot.

2cents
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word