Changing a template (2003)

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Hello,

I recently created an “Outline” document template and created 10 documents based on that template. I later realized that there is somethign I want to change with Heading 1. I made that change in the Outline template and saved it.

However, the change is not reflected in the outlines.

Is the only way to reflect that change by going into each template and individually changing it? Or is there a way for me to link each document to the newer, updated template so that the changes are made automatically?

Thank you very much.

JMT

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You can open each document, and from the Tools > Templates and Add-ins menu you can set the flag “Automatically update document styles”. You can then clear the flag again, and resave the document.

If you have lots of these documents then it wouldn’t be too hard to write a macro to do this to each document in turn.

StuartR

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Actually, that didn’t quite solve the problem because I just realized I had updated to the wrong template! Essentially, I just realized that I have my document linked to the wrong template. It is linked to Normal.dot but it should be linked to Outline.dot.

It is too late to do anything about this?

Thank you,

JMT

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You can also change the attached template in the “Templates and Add-Ins…” dialog box. Just type the name of the correct template before you set the “Automatically update document styles” check box.

StuartR

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Well that worked like a charm.

By the way, when I go to modify one of my styles in a given template, in a dialog box, two check boxes appear. The one of the left says, “Add to template” and the one of the right says, “Automatically update.” Does the “Automatically update” checkbox in that dialog box do the same thing as the “Automatically update document styles” checkbox in the “Templates and Add-ins” dialog box under the “Tools” menu?

Thanks,

JMT

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Not quite the same thing, one affects ALL styles, the other just affects one style.

StuartR

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Do you mean to say that when I check the checkbox under the Templates and Add-Ins dialog box, every change that I have made to the template fo the document I was working with (usually Normal.dot) gets saved to all my tempates, including Outline.dot??? Is there a way to stop that?

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Sorry, I think I am confusing you.

The checkbox you can see in this screen shot causes every style in the document to be updated to match the corresponding style in the attached template.

StuartR

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