What's the best way to enforce template use?

[Joe in Australia via OfficeKB.com]

I've written a template which makes it easier to apply a particular document
format.

I'm wondering whether I should try to discourage people from applying manual
formatting. Assuming that someone has chosen to use the template, should I
try to stop them applying bold, font size and italics? Should I try to lock
off the non-approved styles? Or should I just supply a way of flagging them?

jds

 

[Anne Troy]

Best you can usually do is create a special toolbar that contains only the
styles you WANT them to use. (Remove the style dropdown from the template's
formatting toolbar.) It's difficult to force users to do anything. Begging
works...sometimes.
************
Hope it helps!
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Joe,

WHAT you can do (easily) in this respect depends on the version of Word people
using your template will have?

How critical is it that people do NOT use direct formatting in the document?

I've written a template which makes it easier to apply a particular document
format.

I'm wondering whether I should try to discourage people from applying manual
formatting. Assuming that someone has chosen to use the template, should I
try to stop them applying bold, font size and italics? Should I try to lock
off the non-approved styles? Or should I just supply a way of flagging them?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Jonathan West]

Best you can usually do is create a special toolbar that contains only the
styles you WANT them to use. (Remove the style dropdown from the
template's formatting toolbar.) It's difficult to force users to do
anything. Begging works...sometimes.

I agree with this. The following article shows you how to build such a
toolbar

Creating Custom Toolbars for Templates
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=262

The overall idea is to make easier for users to do it right than to do it
wrong...


--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

 

[Joe in Australia via OfficeKB.com]

WHAT you can do (easily) in this respect depends on the version of Word people

using your template will have?

How critical is it that people do NOT use direct formatting in the document?

It's not really critical, but there are a lot of formatting rules required by
this submission style and it's easier if people stick to predetermined styles.
One big plus of using the template is that it uses my numbering macros which
(in this context) are bulletproof. Once people start applying their own lists
they can end up in all sorts of trouble.

The site Jonathan West pointed to looks as though it's sufficient for what I
need, as long as they're using Word 2003:

Creating Custom Toolbars for Templates
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=262

I think I'll have to trap and replace the common formatting shortcuts (bold,
italic and so forth). That's going to be a pain.

jds