New From Existing Document (2003)

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Hello y’all,

Happy June 2006!

One Word 2003 feature I do really like is the File | New | New | From Existing Document…

Unfortunately that takes three clicks to get to the “New From Existing” dialog box.

It would be so great to be able to have a button on a toolbar to go directly to the “New From Existing” dialog box. Anyone figured out how to do that? I tried Tools | Customize | Command tab | All Commands. But I can’t find the command there.

Any ideas? Perhaps a macro?

G’Day,
Rich

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Try this (I only tested in Word 2002, where I don’t see that particular menu item):

Tools > Customize…
Open the File menu so that the desired command is showing
Ctrl+Click and drag to copy the “button” to the desired new destination
Right-click the new button and customize to your liking

Of course, if the command you refer to is in the New Document Task Pane, this wouldn’t work.

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It’s not a menu item, but a choice in the New Document task pane (which is available in Word 2002 too).

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This simple macro will display the Open dialog, but create a new document from the selected one:

Sub NewFromExisting1()
With Application.Dialogs(wdDialogFileOpen)
If .Show = True Then
Documents.Add Template:=.Name
End If
End With
End Sub

This version is slightly more sophisticated, the dialog title and button caption have been modified. You can add more file types if you like, use the line with .Filters.Add as model.

Sub NewFromExisting2()
With Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen)
.ButtonName = “Create New”
.Title = “New from existing document”
.Filters.Clear
.Filters.Add Description:=”Word documents”, Extensions:=”*.doc”
If .Show = True Then
Documents.Add Template:=.SelectedItems(1)
End If
End With
End Sub

Put the macro of your choice in your Normal.dot or in a global template. You can assign it to a toolbar button the usual way.

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Dear Hans,

That’s perfect. Thank you so very much.

I gather, though, that this would work in Word 97+, since it is simply a MACRO, and doesn’t depend upon the Word 2003 New Document task pane. Am I correct in my assumption?

Again, thanks for you swift and useful support here.

Blessings,
Rich

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The first macro should work in all versions of Word starting with Word 97, but the second one will only work in Word 2002 and 2003, since it uses the FileDialog object that was introduced in Office XP (2002).

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