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Copy AutoText entries to another template

On the Tools menu, click Templates and Add-Ins.

Click Organizer, and then click the AutoText tab.

To copy items to or from a different template, click Close File to close the active document and its attached template or to close the Normal template. Then click Open File, and open the template you want.

Click the items you want to copy in either list, and then click Copy.

Modify a Document Template

When you modify a template, it will affect new documents that you create based on the template. The content of existing documents is not affected by changes you make to the templates they're based on.

On the File menu, click Open, and then locate and open the template you want to modify.

If there aren't any templates listed in the Open dialog box, click Document Templates in the Files of type box.

Change any of the template's text and graphics, styles, formatting, macros, AutoText entries, toolbars, menu settings, and shortcut keys

On the Standard toolbar, click Save

Microsoft Word will update modified styles when you open an existing document only if the Automatically update document styles option is turned on. Set this option before you open an existing document by clicking Templates and Add-Ins on the Tools menu.

You can also save a template as a document or Web page

Project is Unviewable

If you have macros stored in a global template these macros will not be viewable when the template is loaded.

Copy custom toolbars to another document or template

On the Tools menu, click Templates and Add-Ins.

Click Organizer, and then click the Toolbars tab.

To copy items to or from a different template or file, click Close File to close the active document and its attached template or to close the Normal template. Then click Open File, and open the template or file you want.

Click the items you want to copy in either list, and then click Copy.

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Linking Style Sheets

Click this button to go to the Linked CSS Style Sheets dialog box. CSS Style Sheets allow HTML authors to attach multiple external style sheets to their HTML documents.

Template Hierarchy

So, we have attached templates, global templates, and normal.dot. What happens if there are conflicts (two Autotext entries or macros with the same name, etc.)? They defer to each other according to rules set by Microsoft (but not very easy to discover).

1.        First, look in the document. Any macros or styles in the document will be used in preference to others. Any toolbar modifications stored in the document will trump those elsewhere. (If the document and a template both have toolbars with the same name, though, they will both be available when the document is active.)

2.        Next, check the attached template. Any macros in the template will take priority over any except those of the same name in the document. Any styles added to the template or changed in the template after the document was created will be available to the document by updating styles.

3.        Then check Normal.dot. All styles in Normal.dot are available to all documents except those already in the document. (Normal.dot has many more styles than are ever used in one document.)

4.        Finally, check other global templates and add-ins. Again, these do not contribute styles to documents but all macros, toolbars and Autotext entries are available from a global template. If there is a macro with the same name in Normal.dot, the attached template, or the document, as the name in any other global template, the macro in the global template will not be used (except for an AutoExec macro). If there are multiple global template, they are checked in alphabetical order.

Using a Web Server

You could alternatively store your templates on a web server.

(File > New)

Select "On my web sites"

The New from Templates on my web sites dialog box opens

Click "create new folder" and create a shortcut to the necessary folder

You can save files there in the usual way using (File > Save As)