Project 2: AutoTools
Wizards & Templates

When you want to create a new document, Word and other modern word processors have a number of shortcuts for common documents.

Word comes with:

• Wizards
• Templates

They are not all installed by default. You can find them on the installation CD-ROM. They may be quite different in different program versions.

Wizard: 
an automated method of creating a document.

A Word document wizard is a sequence of dialogs, asking you to make choices and to answer questions. The wizard creates a document based on your answers. You can then make adjustments and corrections and add more text and graphics.

Wizards are simply great for documents with complex layouts like brochures and newsletters. They save you a lot of time and aggravation.

Template:
a saved set of styles, which can include graphics; a guide for creating a new document

The word template  is used in two ways.

1. Technical - a document with a special format that can be used to create a new document, without risk of changing the one used as the template.   
2. General - any document that is used as a guide when creating a new document. 

A Word template can contain standard text and images that are intended to be part of every document made with the template. A template might just be a set of paragraph and character styles.

For example, a letterhead could be saved as a template file, including your favorite paragraph styles and your company logo. Create a new document using this template and your letterhead material is already there! Just add the actual text of the letter.

You used a template when you used AutoFormat to format an existing document, but only to apply the paragraph styles in the template.

When you apply a template to an existing document, only the styles will apply. Any text or graphics saved in the template won't show up unless you create the document with that template to start with.

Some of Word's templates are complete documents themselves. They serve as an example of good writing style and good layout style. You would naturally replace the pre-written text with words of your own. When you don't quite know how to get started, such a document will get you moving.

Be sure to remove all the pre-written parts of a template document! It's so embarrassing to send out something that includes phrases like [Click here to type your letter] or [Insert photo here].

~~  1 Cor. 10:31 ...whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.  ~~

Last updated: 30 Apr 2012