Editing Templates

A template is Word's guide for how your document and working environment should appear. Templates can contain information on macros, styles, default text, and any number of other environmental items.

Editing a template is much like editing a regular document; the only difference is that the file is saved with a different filename extension than regular documents. To load an existing template so that you can edit it, do the following:

1. Click the Office button and then click Open. Word displays the Open dialog box.
2. At the bottom of the dialog box, just above the Open button, is a drop-down list where you can specify the type of files you want Word to list. Use the drop-down list to select either Word Templates or Word Macro-Enabled Templates, depending on which type you want to open.
3. Using the controls in the dialog box, browse through directories and disks drives as desired until the desired template files are listed.
4. Select the desired document template.
5. Click the Open button.

You can now make any changes desired, and then save the template again. The changes affect any future documents you base on the template.