From the course: Word 2013 Essential Training

Creating new documents with templates - Microsoft Word Tutorial

From the course: Word 2013 Essential Training

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Creating new documents with templates

Whether you're creating a new document from scratch, a new blank document, or a fancy calendar, a brochure, envelopes and labels; in any of those scenarios, you will be using some form of template. So, we are going to look at creating new documents now, using templates. To do this, of course, we can go to the File tab, and then select New down the left-hand side. Now, from here, as we saw in an earlier lesson, the very first option, which is the default, is a blank document. But indeed, this is a template; a template that has 1 inch margins all the way around on an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper. That's all part of the template setup. There's also a default font that's going to be used, font size; that's all built into the template. But, as you can see, there are many other templates to choose from. For example, next we see a due diligence document, or a business calendar. As we scroll down the list, we see different designs; cards, menus, and so on. Now, your list may not look identical to mine. This list can change over time. But, just so you know, there are actually thousands of templates to choose from. If you're connected to the Internet, you can go to the Search field here, and start typing in keywords, or if there's already a keyword showing up next to suggested searches, you can click there. Looking for calendars, for example, you would click Calendar, and you'll notice it's searching thousands of templates online. You'll see a number of thumbnails representing different layouts, or templates, and then you'll see calendars here under Category, including a number of other categories like Monthly, Annual. Look at this: Education, and Student calendars. Lots to choose from. You'll even see the number of templates in that category, and as you scroll down, depending on what you choose for your keywords -- in this case, Calendar -- you'll see quite an extensive list. So, let's say we wanted to go back; we'll click Home. And what we're really looking for, maybe, is a brochure. So, we can type in brochure. If we wanted to add additional keywords at this point, we can leave a space, and type in more. How about marketing? Press Enter on your keyboard, and again, the search takes place. And in this case, you'll see Marketing up here at the top, and then a number of other categories down below, so you can narrow your search down. The scrollbar you see next to the thumbnails allows you to go through the default search results, and if you see something you like, it's a simple matter of selecting it. Let's go to Realtor newsletter (half-fold). We can select it. We'll get another thumbnail representation with additional images representing the various pages in this template, and you'll also get a nice little description over here. Notice the page size; not exactly what we're looking for. Maybe our printer doesn't accommodate that size. So, no problem; we don't have to select this. We can go to other options using the navigation arrows that appear on the left and right. So, we can go through other options, looking for one that's maybe closer to our needs. And if you see one, it's just a matter of clicking Create. If you don't want to go through all of them using the navigation arrows, no problem; just close this up, and you're back to the original list. So, you can scroll through on your own, maybe narrow it down. Advertisement might work; close to marketing. And when you find one, give it a click. That looks a little bit better; 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper. All you have to do is click Create. Now, if you think this is a template you're going to come back to on a regular basis, there is a pushpin button, so it will always be pinned to your list of templates. So, when you go to create a new document, this will be on your list, and that's why everyone's list can look different when they go to create new documents. So, let's pin it to our list of templates, and then click Create, so we can go back to it, creating as many as we need using this format. So there is our new document, using the template. You can see it's actually a 2 page document. As we move down to the bottom left corner, we see that. And of course, we can use our scrollbar to scroll through. We can also use Page Up and Page Down on the keyboard to move through the pages. The nice thing, of course, about templates is you'll see placeholders. And in this case, the text really doesn't make sense, but we can replace it with our own. Where it says Insert headline here, we can click to get inside that text box, highlight what we want, and type in our own title or headline; No Obstacles. Now, when we use a template like this, don't be fooled by all of the content. We don't actually have a document that's been created and saved at this point. If you look to the title bar at the top, you'll notice document, and a number up here, representing a brand new document that has yet to be saved. So, if you do want to keep this, you do need to use the Save button, or go to File, and choose Save, or Save As from that list. You could even use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S. So, let's just save this. Notice the new default; your SkyDrive is the default location, but if you prefer, you can go to your own computer. I'm going to do that, and I am actually going to save it to my Desktop. So, I am going to select that, and just type in NO_Marketing_brochure. And when hit Save, I now have a saved document on my Desktop. You might see this message indicating that it's going to be upgraded to the newest file format. So, if the template you chose uses the older format, the .DOC format, it will be updated to DOCX. Click OK, and now you're working on a document that actually has a name, and has been saved. We see it up here on the title bar. So you can continue working on it, or if you wanted to move onto something else, you're safe to close it, since you have saved the document. Let's go to File, and click Close. So that's how we create new documents from templates. Remember, you have access to thousands of templates; that's if you're connected to the Internet.

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