Design Your Look: 5 More Ways to Customize the Way You Work
Published: July 20, 2005
If you read my previous column, 5 Tips for Customizing the Way You Work, your environment is now all yours. You have custom toolbars, custom menus, and quick access to any program or folder you need. But, why do all of your documents look exactly the same as everyone else's?
Not only is it easy to get your own look for every document, presentation, worksheet, or even notebook page—customizing your own look can save you work on every file you create.
You can create your own templates (or the equivalent) in most programs across the Office System. In this article, I'll talk about 5 tips for customizing your work.
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1. Create Templates in Word
Microsoft Office Word templates can serve two key purposes. The most common reasons to create a template are to save time and get consistent results when you frequently need to create the same type of document—as business letters, marketing presentations, or periodic reports. But, custom Word templates can also store customizations such as AutoText entries, macros, custom toolbars, and keyboard shortcuts.
To create a template in Word:
1. | Start with a new Word document or a document you want to use as the basis for your template. On the File menu click Save As. |
2. | In the Save As dialog box, select Document Template from the Save as type drop-down list, name your template, and click OK. |
Tip: Saving templates in Microsoft Office PowerPoint and Microsoft Office Excel, both discussed later in this article, follow the same steps. In the Save As dialog box in PowerPoint, select Design Template as the Save as type option. In Excel, select Template as the Save as type option.
By default, your new file will be saved to your Templates folder—which is perfect for those templates used as a basis for new documents, because templates in that location become available from the Templates dialog box.
To access templates saved in this location, in File menu, click New. In the New Document task pane click On my computer. Note that this option is the same from the New Presentation or New Workbook task panes in PowerPoint and Excel, respectively.
New Document task pane
However, when you create a template to customize your Word environment, save it in your Word Startup folder.
If you are not familiar with your Word Startup folder, it is easy to find.
1. | On the Tools menu click Options and then click File Locations. You will see Startup in the list of file types and its location appears next to it. |
2. | If you can not see the entire location in the dialog box, click Startup in the File types list and then click Modify to view the file path. |
Learn more about creating and working with Word templates.
Visit my blog to learn more about creating a template to save Word customizations.
2. Create Design Templates and Customize Masters in PowerPoint
There are several ways to customize your PowerPoint slides, two of which can affect many aspects of slide design and layout and can be applied to all or several of your slides at once.
| • | Design templates: PowerPoint comes with many design templates, and you can create your own as well. These are very similar to templates that are used as a basis for documents in Word. You can apply a design from one template to an existing presentation to change its look instantly. Or, you can open a design template that contains pre-created slides in addition to color schemes, backgrounds, and layouts. To view the design templates already available to you, in PowerPoint, on the Format menu click Slide Design to open the Slide Design task pane. Get help for creating and working with PowerPoint design templates |
| • | Slide Masters: One important element of a design template in PowerPoint is masters. Slide Masters (as well as masters for other slide layout options) help you easily control the appearance of the layouts in your particular presentation. To access the Slide Master, on the View menu click Master and then click Slide Master. Get more information on working with masters in PowerPoint. |
3. Create Templates and Set Up Styles in Excel
You can create templates in Excel just as easily as you can in Word and PowerPoint. And, your Excel templates can include worksheets, charts, formatting, or even custom toolbars. Get help for creating templates in Excel.
In addition to individual templates, you can also customize styles for how Excel worksheet content looks, by default, in every workbook you create. To access Excel styles, on the Format menu click Styles. Learn about using styles in Excel.
The Style dialog box in Excel
4. Create Your Own Stationary in OneNote
OneNote offers a variety of stationary that ranges from things as simple as different paper sizes or background colors to detailed page layouts with pre-created text areas and Note Flags. You can also save any OneNote page as your own custom stationary.
To access OneNote stationary, on the Format menu click Stationary. To save a OneNote page as your own stationary, at the bottom of the Stationary task pane click Save current page as stationary and then give your new stationary a name. Learn about creating and using stationary in OneNote.
5. Get Customizable Templates at Office Online
Would you like some help getting started with that custom template? Check out the many templates available free on Office Online, covering several programs across the Office System. Need a template for a specific task? Give Office Online a look before you reinvent the wheel.
Keep in mind that, just like your computer, the templates you get do not have to be the templates you end up with. You can save time by downloading a template similar to the one you need and then customize it to fit your purpose exactly. Browse and download free templates from Office Online.
 | Stephanie Krieger
Stephanie Krieger is a Microsoft Office System MVP as well as author of the books Advanced Microsoft Office Documents 2007 Edition Inside Out (February 2007) and Microsoft Office Document Designer. As a professional document consultant, she has helped many global companies develop enterprise solutions for Microsoft Office and taught numerous professionals to build great documents by understanding how the Office programs “think.” Stephanie writes regularly for several Microsoft Web pages and frequently delivers Microsoft webcasts. Visit her blog, Arouet Dot Net, for Microsoft Office tips as well as information about new and upcoming publications and webcasts.
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