Word Template

Introduction

A word template serves much the same purpose as a powerpoint template. There are fewer dimensions to play with, and it is therefore significantly simpler, but still fairly valuable from the point of view of time saving and impact creation. It would be best to complete the steps required for a powerpoint template first, since many of them are easily reused for a word template.

Using a Word Template

To begin with, the the required template and corresponding theme need to be made available on your system. The .thmx & .dotx files required can be found in the following google drive folder:
template files
1. Store the .thmx file in "C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes".
2. Store the .dotx file in "C:\Users\<user name>\OneDrive\Documents\Custom Office Templates".
3. Now, when you open Word, you should be able to see and use the theme by "Design -> Themes -> Custom -> Indigo Dye - Garamond 1 - Public Use". Selecting this will change the colours available in all colour selection dropdowns.
4. To create a new doc with the Word template (recommended for all new docs) one has to navigate to "File -> New -> Personal -> Starter Doc". This will create a new doc with the default pages of the Word template (.dotx) just loaded.
Alternately, you could just downlaod the .docx file from the google drive folder and use that as a starting point for each new doc.

Creating Docs with the Template

Creating impactful docs quickly with a template takes a little time and effort to learn initially, even though it may be much simpler than using a powerpoint template. The recommended steps to follow are:
1. Go through the entire template. There are about 15 pages of the template. Some of these pages are instructional, explaining the important sections and useful objects available, and how best to use them. Most pages are illustrative, showing how to use the objects and sections, which can be copy-pasted for quick and easy use.
2. Familiarise yourself with the objects, sections and principles of the template. It would be useful to be familiar with which objects are where, and how one could use each of them. It may be particularly useful to register the names of each object so that one could quickly search for it within the doc and re-use.
3. Look at a few other docs made using the template. In order to get a better idea of how you might want to use the template it might help to have a look at a few other docs made out of the same template and either re-use ideas or improve upon the same.
template sample docs
4. Make your own docs using the template. And finally, making a bunch of docs by re-using the template and building upon it is the best way to get comfortable with it. By creating a few docs one can develop an idea of what shortcomings of the template they would want to improve upon and build their own template as well.

Creating a Word Template

Creating a word template is also simpler than creating a powerpoint template. It is recommended to do this after completing a powerpoint template, as many steps can be easily borrowed. The only distinct steps that need to be completed then are:
1. Identify main sections to use and other elements and objects that will be used frequently. Create all of these objects and stadard pages in a doc. Detail out any important rules of usage to create on comprehensive doc which can be quickly cut down and edited.
2. Save the .dotx version of the file (save as "Word Template") in "C:\Users\<user name>\OneDrive\Documents\Custom Office Templates".
3. Create new files from that template through "File -> New -> Personal -> <template name>".