Templates

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Word Processing II >>
Templates

Creating a Template

Do you find yourself retyping a lot of text that you reuse in various letters or other documents? Say, a lesson plan template? Most word processing users either retype the same thing every time or else they open up an existing document and use "Save As" to create a second copy of it then edit the contents. There is a better way to do this and that is creating a document template that you can open up each time as a new document. For your assignment, you are asked to create a lesson plan template (or a unit template if you prefer). If you have another type of template that you want to create, please contact the coordinator for approval. To create a template,

Open a new document.
Type in the elements of the document that you need to reuse in future documents. For a lesson plan template, you could have headings for grade level, subject area, time for lesson, etc. Tables can be inserted to help layout your material. You can have sections for pre-lesson preparation, opening, activity, assessment, materials, etc. Do not put in any individual lesson plan information just yet - only enter the layout and headings that you want to use before you would enter lesson plan details. Detailed instructions on creating the content of your template will not be provided here as it is to be personalized by you to suit your needs. This is YOUR document template.
Once your template is ready to save, go to the "File" menu and select "Save As"
Enter the name "XXXplan" for your template (or "Unit" if you are creating a unit plan). Note that XXX should be replace by your initials.
Under "Save as Type," change the setting to "Document Template" as shown below. The folder you are saving the template to will automatically skip to the "Template" folder in the "Microsoft Office" folder on your computer. Leave it in this location. You will then be able to choose the template easily when opening a template.

Click "Save."
On Windows computers, templates are automatically assigned a different extension than documents. Documents have the ending ".doc" whereas templates have the ending ".dot." Furthermore, as shown below, you will notice that their icons look different when you are viewing them in Explorer or My Computer.

Document Icon Template Icon

Close your document template. In the next section of this lesson, you will learn how to use your template.

Opening a Template

To use your template to enter the specific details of a lesson,

Go to the "File" menu and select "New." Note that you cannot use the "New" shortcut on the Standard toolbar. The following window will appear:

On the General tab, you should see your lesson template. Note that if you had saved your template in the "Letters & Faxes" folder inside the "Template" folder mentioned above, your template would have appeared under "Letters & Faxes" tab of the above window.
Click on your lesson template to select it.
Keep the radio button on "Document" since you want to create a new document using the template. (If you selected the "Template" radio button, you would be creating a new template based on the existing one you selected.)
Click OK.
A new document will be opened with the template material already entered. Notice that you did not actually open your lesson template. Instead you opened a new document. At the top of your word window, you will see the document has not been saved yet as it is currently named "Document 1" as shown below:

Enter some brief lesson plan details for, say, a grade three lesson on insects. You do not have to go into much detail. Simply enter some content to demonstrate that you can use a template.
Save this document as "XXXgr3" as you will be submitting it for part of your assignment. (XXX should be replaced by the initials for your name).

When complete, please save your changes, then continue to the next lesson on Using Styles.