Adding different header to templates

[dixie]

I have a series of letters (about 70) that are saved as templates. I
regularly need to do a set of these letters for a new organisation, hence
the letterhead which is different for each organisation has to be changed on
each individual letter. Since it contains a graphic, text box, lines and
some typing, it is a tedious one at a time thing - takes about an hour to do
for each organisation. If I put the whole letterhead into a header, is
there then a way to simply add that header to every template in a directory,
or even better, to replace the existing header with the new one. If I could
do it that way, I could save myself about 3 hours a week.

dixie

 

[Vocátional© & Technicál© Educátion®]

This worked for me...

Open a letter. Change it as your with. Save.As a new template after you
create a new directory in the save dialog box. Name the new template
folder, test. Keep changing the letterhead and saving until you have them
as you wish. Now save the ones you want to keep into a new template folder.

Delete the old template folder names test.

Best regards, Jeff @ VoTecEdu at MSN Dot Com (e-mail address removed)
http://www.nola.com/
"Imagination...is the irrepressible revolutionist."

 

[dixie]

But, aren't you then changing each letter, one at a time? I already do
that. What I am looking for is a way to either with a macro or
programatically, overwrite a header with a new header and do it in a bulk
way so that all the letters in a folder are done at once. I can't see any
commands for dealing with the header in a template though. For example, if
I can do it in a macro, it must delete the existing header in each template
file, then replace that with a header in another special document (which is
just there for that purpose). The idea would be that it could loop through
all document templates in a folder until it had done the lot. It is
probably not possible, but I can't see why?

dixie

 

[Graham Mayor]

Are you preparing templates for different organisations?

Create a new blank template and save in it an autotext entry that contains
the letterhead information for the individual client, using a unique name,
that the client is unlikely to use.

In the individual templates, call this autotext entry by means of an
{AUTOTEXT name} field.
Supply the templates as document templates and the blank template containing
the autotext entry as an add-in.

When a new document is created, it should pickup the autotext from the
add-in and place it in the letterhead.

***Try it with just one template first!***

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP
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Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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[dixie]

Whoa Graham, I am not a Word expert. Can you explain to me in words of one
syllable, how to save an autotext entry that contains the letterhead?

Also, I am unsure what you mean be saving the blank template as an add-in.

dixie

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Look up AutoText in help. You can save a template containing AutoText as an
Add-In by saving it in the Word startup folder. You can find this folder's
location by looking in Tools => Options => File Locations. That folder
should not be in the User Templates folder or the Workgroup Templates
folder.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory:
<URL: http://addbalance.com/word/index.htm>

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide)
<URL: http://addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm>

See also the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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[dixie]

OK, I have just spent a while reading help files and experimenting and I am
now at the stage where I can enter autotext on the blank document and get
the template document I am using for an experiment to open and bring in that
text into the top of the letter that spawns from the template file. What is
still elluding me however is that I can't seem to do it as a header, even
though I put the autotext in a header on the blank template. What am I
missing here - I was unable to save the header itself as Autotext, only the
contents of the header.

dixie

 

[dixie]

Again, I ask to early, OK, I have worked out that I don't save the header,
only the contents of the header and place them inside a header on the
template I want them to go into. This is really quite exciting. I love
learning new things.

Thankyou for your help, it made me do some research and experimenting and
that is really good and it feels good when you get a result too.

dixie

 

[Charles Kenyon]

If you want to email me, I'll send you a sample of a letterhead that I
developed. Any letter templates based on it will automatically update the
letterhead contents and formatting when generating new documents. There can
be multiple sets of templates for different letterhead and they can be
stored in different folders (except the base template for each must be in
the Letters & Faxes folder of the workgroup templates. The user makes
changes in the main template and they will be used by the other templates.
Send the email to (e-mail address removed). Note that you'll have
to pull nospam and remove from the address.

A problem, for me, with AutoText fields is that I want documents that have
been saved to not change. That is, I want my computer files to track (or
replace) my paper records. The template I developed only updates new
documents.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory:
<URL: http://addbalance.com/word/index.htm>

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide)
<URL: http://addbalance.com/usersguide/index.htm>

See also the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Graham Mayor]

If you get stuck with the original premise, then feel free to post back

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP
E-mail (e-mail address removed)
Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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[dixie]

Graham, when you do this process of letting the autotext bring in some input
from another template into a header on a template, is it permanent. What I
mean is if I then distribute these templates without my "master" template
that supplies the letterhead to the header in each template, is the template
in there, or is there only the autotext statement that would fail on their
system due to not having a master template to get its information from. I
know that is long winded and poorly put, but I think I captured the gist of
what I want to ask.

dixie

 

[Graham Mayor]

That took a bit of head scratching

The simple answer is to use the Organizer to copy the autotext into the
document template and distribute the template c/w the autotext, then the
problem doesn't arise. Provided you give the autotext a unique name that the
user is unlikely to adopt, the template will pick up the first autotext of
that name it finds i.e. the one in the document template.


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Graham Mayor - Word MVP
E-mail (e-mail address removed)
Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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[dixie]

Sorry about the grammar - it was terrible. OK then, another question.
Where do you have to put the template with the real header in it, in a
system that is using a network? I know that Windows needs to know where to
look for the autotext. Mine, on a standalone computer, is in the Windows
Startup folder. Will that exist on a network drive, or does the template
with the header in it need to be on each workstation in the Windows Startup
folder (which would make it less useful)?

dixie

 

[Graham Mayor]

That depends on how much control you have over the network.
The obvious solution is to copy the autotext into the *document* template
and share that template across the network - see
http://www.gmayor.com/Template_Locations.htm

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP
E-mail (e-mail address removed)
Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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