This metadata can be found from the Info pane in the Office apps along with the other metadata. The author property is embedded into a file when it is first saved.
Creating templates in office 365 update#
As a template author, if you need to update or modify the template, you use the right-click action Open to physically open the template file for modification.Īt Arcible, we think this is the most obvious and typical problem seen by organisations using documents as templates. This leaves the template intact as it was intended and lets the user get straight to work on their version of it. When we click a template to open it, it creates a new, unsaved file, based on the template. Before you know it the template has been auto-saved and includes data entered by another user and is no longer a pristine template ready for use.Ī template by comparison has the default action of open a new copy. This can be a big deal, especially in a team where you have common templates used by everyone. If you are using OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online to store your files with the Auto-save feature enabled, before you know it you’ve added text and information to that template and it’s been saved and overwritten. When you use documents as templates, the default action is to open the file so that you can start working on it straight away. What happens when you open a document? It opens, right? So what happens if you are sent a template to use and you open it and start editing? Some minor but others being major so let’s explore those problems and see how they can have a real impact. Using documents as templates has a few issues. The problem with using documents as templates potx for templates while for Microsoft Excel, the file extensions are. Office files use different icons and file extensions so that you can differentiate them.įor PowerPoint the same is true but the file formats are. A template, by contrast, has a binder across the top and looks like a notepad with multiple sheets attached to it. The icon for a regular document is the blue W symbol with a white background and grey lines to represent a file. We can easily identify files that are correctly saved as templates from Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 Apps because they have a different icon a different file extension.Ī normal Microsoft Word document carries an extension of. Creating the templates in the first instance took many hours to get it just the way we wanted it. It all comes back to the idea of consistency and using templates to maintain a standardised approach to producing content in an organisation.Īt Arcible, we love our brand and maintaining it consistently is important for us so we use templates extensively to ensure that every document we create carries all the hallmarks of Arcible work product every time.
A template is a specially crafted file that contains building block elements designed to be re-used again and again.Ī template could be as simple as setting some default styles in a document such as fonts or colours it could be a complex document that makes use of all manner of pre-composed elements to create a highly stylised layout that would be difficult or time consuming for somebody to reproduce many times. To come straight out with it then, a document is not a template and we shouldn’t be using documents as templates. When you take a document created by one person and then edit it to make it your own you are actually inheriting a bunch of this metadata from the previous person.
In Microsoft Office and the Microsoft 365 Apps, this metadata is written into the file when it is first created and updated as the document evolves. Documents also contain hidden information called metadata and attributes. The problem comes from the fact that documents contain not just the things you see: the text and images on the page. The trouble is, these templates helpfully shared often aren’t templates and they lead to unforeseen problems down the line. They could have come from HR, from Marketing, or from someone in your team trying to help everyone standardise. If you’ve worked in the business for any amount of time you will have come across templates that people share. We could make this the shortest blog post ever and simply say that you should not be using documents as templates but that wouldn’t make for a very engaging post or explain what we’re talking about or why.