How to Use Templates in Word 2008 for Mac

Word 2008 for Mac comes with professionally designed templates that you can use to create brochures, calendars, forms, flyers, labels, and more. You can customize these Word templates to make them appear just the way you want. The easiest way to start a project from a template is with the Office Project Gallery, which you open by choosing File→Project Gallery or pressing Command+Shift+P. Here’s how to open and modify a template:

1

Click the New tab at the top of the Project Gallery window, if it’s not already highlighted.

The New tab’s contents appear.

2

Choose Word Documents from the Show menu near the lower-right corner of the Project Gallery window.

Choosing Word Documents limits your choices to Word templates so that you don’t have to search through a bunch of Excel or PowerPoint templates to find what you need.

3

Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the Coordinated Forms category.

Clicking the disclosure triangle reveals several subcategories.

4

Click the subcategory of the type of document you want to create.

For example, if you want to create an invoice, click the Invoices subcategory.

Enlarge
5

Click the template you want.

The other invoice templates you could have used appear on the right side of the window, and all the other template categories appear in the list on the left.

Enlarge
6

Click the Open button.

The template you chose opens. When you open the template, switch to Print Layout view (choose View→Print Layout). None of the views, except Print Layout and Publishing Layout, display the graphic images on your page.

7

To customize a Word template, replace the placeholder text with your information.

You can stop working on customizing your template in midstream and come back to it later, or when you’re finished, save it to reuse this version of the template over and over in the future.

8

Choose File→Save to save your document as a template. Choose Word Template (.dotx) from the Format menu.

When you tell Word that you want to save a file as a Word Template, it changes the save folder to My Templates so that your template will automatically appear in the Project Gallery from now on.

9

Name the template something meaningful and then click Save.

From now on, you can open this template by selecting it in the My Templates category on the New tab of the Project Gallery.

When you open a template, Word automatically opens a copy of that template and names it Document1. To avoid losing your work, get into the habit of giving the template a descriptive name and saving it in the folder of your choice before you start typing.

If you ever want to delete a template, you’ll find your My Templates folder in your home folder’s Library: Home/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/My Templates.

Comments (2)

  1. Posted by Not getting step 2.... JULY 11, 2009 | 03:52PM
    Just bought the new MacBook Pro. Looking for some templates. Agenda, specifications, etc. In step 2, I see no show menu in bottom right corner. Only show is up top which shows characters and puts a blue tilda-like thingy on the blank page. Mistake or me just being a Mac newbie?
    (Report comment)
  2. Posted by phentermine sustained release AUGUST 02, 2009 | 11:46AM
    6jCza1 Great site. Good info.
    (Report comment)