Thanks Stuart
I think what you're saying is that your client is being presented with a new
editable copy of the template instead. Is that right?
Yes – correct.
They deploy docx files – saved as Read Only, and they are forced to “save as”
with a new name.
It’s kind of crazy that these programs – and SharePoint included – don’t
leverage the power of MS Office better – the developers of these intranet
environments don’t seem to understand the power of templates.
Thanks for the reminder about the Doc Properties prompt – for anyone who’s
searching for it, in 2013 it’s under the Developer tab > Document Panel and
check the checkbox “Always show Document Information panel …”
The Author field will automatically populate the registered user in MS Word.
That helps a little, but the author would still need to add in their title each
time.
Sadly without the file being a dotm or docm you can’t add in a macro to process
the DocProperty info more usefully. I would need the IT department - who are
flat out and really stretched to allocated some time – to do something that is
outside their expertise when they have so many other things to deal with.
Changing the image to include addins that can handle some automatic processing
would be optimal – but I think unlikely at this stage.
I was hoping that at a minimum they could run a template from the Intranet
which would at least enable them to leverage Building Blocks…. But alas, it’s
a dream :)
Kind regards Suzy
Suzy Davis
Microsoft Word Templates, Apps for Microsoft Office
& Documentation Projects
www. <http://www.appsforoffice.com/> appsforoffice.com
PO Box 404
Brighton VIC 3186
(Melbourne) Australia
Email suzy.davis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:suzy.davis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Stuart Burnfield
Sent: Tuesday, 12 July 2016 4:45 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: FW: Templates on Atlassian Confluence
Hi Suzy. Yes this is ringing faint bells from a contract with a bank about 8
years ago. I redid their templates and made them available through Sharepoint,
which they were dipping their toes into.
I think whether it's Confluence or Sharepoint you publish the Word template as
an attachment to a page. The user opens the page and then clicks the attachment
to open a working copy in Word that they can update and save.
Ideally the thing that gets opened is a new Word document based on the
template. I think what you're saying is that your client is being presented
with a new editable copy of the template instead. Is that right?
In a template you can specify a dialog that pops up to prompt for some starter
information such as title, project and status. The user fills in the blanks and
clicks OK to populate the new document with these fields, which are probably
displayed in the cover page and headers/footers.
Is it possible to attach an action or macro to that OK button in the initial
pop-up dialog? It could be as simple as opening the Save As dialog with the
Type set to Word Document instead of Word Template.
Sorry to be vague. This was a while ago and these Word features may well have
changed for better or worse since then.
--- Stuart
