Workers' Edge

I recently finished working on a project that generated a dozen separate reports published together in a single booklet. Each report was from three to eight pages long, and most of them included at least one table or chart.

When we were done, several of my co-workers commented on how nicely the reports were laid out. All I had done was create a Word template with a simple two-column layout for long text sections.

To create this template, open a new document, type a dummy document title on the first line, choose a font type and size (I used 12-point bold lucida sans, for example), and center the line by choosing the appropriate icon in the formatting section of Word 2003's standard toolbar and under the Home tab on Word 2007's ribbon.

On the next line, enter dummy text to represent the document summary. The quick way to do so is to type =rand(p,s) (where "p" is the number of paragraphs and "s" is the number of sentences) and press Enter. Don't go nuts, though. This is supposed to be a "summary."

Choose a font type and size for the summary, which will appear in a single column. Now press Enter to move the cursor to a new line. In Word 2003, click Insert > Break > Continuous > OK. In Word 2007, click the Page Layout tab, choose Breaks in the Page Setup section, and click Continuous in the drop-down menu.

In Word 2003, click Format > Columns and choose the two-column icon under Presets. In Word 2007, click the Page Layout tab on the ribbon and click Columns > Two. (Note that this important step was inadvertently excluded from the original version of the tip; my apologies.)

Paste in more dummy text by typing =rand(p,s) (where "p" is the number of paragraphs and "s" is the number of sentences) and pressing Enter. Format the font size and type, or stick with the document defaults.

Finally, save the file as a template: In Word 2003, click File > Save As, give the template a name such as "Two-column layout," choose a location for the file (more on this below), select Document Template (*.dot) in the Save as Type drop-down menu, and click Save.

In Word 2007, click the Office button, choose Save As > Word Template (or choose one of the other "Template" options on the "Save as type" drop-down menu), and click Save.

To have your new template listed under My Templates in Word's New dialog, save the template to this folder in Vista:
C:\Users\your logon ID\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

Or this folder in XP:
C:\Users\your logon ID\AppData\Microsoft\Templates

Or click the Templates entry under Favorite Links in Vista or Trusted Templates in XP's Save in dialog. Note that once you've opened it, the template will also appear in the Recent documents list in both Word versions.

You could create every document, spreadsheet, and presentation you work on from scratch, but if you're like me, you'll likely spend more time futzing with the file's layout and design than entering the data that comprises it.

That's why I rely on the many free templates and extensions for my favorite productivity apps. I've written in the past about places to find add-ons for Microsoft Office, but there's also a wealth of free extensions and templates for OpenOffice.org's Writer word processor, Calc spreadsheet, and Impress presentation program.

Start at OpenOffice.org's Extensions page. Click one of the options at the top left to list the extensions by application, category, popularity, or other criterion.

One extension that workgroups may find helpful is O3Spaces Workplace Community Edition, which offers version control, check in/check out, and other collaboration features for OpenOffice.org and StarOffice apps. The add-on combines an AJAX Web client with a desktop component that you can access via a system-tray icon. It even works in mixed Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org/StarOffice environments.

I'm less impressed with OpenOffice.org's templates for Writer, Calc, and Impress. Still, I have to admit that they're better layouts than I would be able to devise on my own. One compilation of OpenOffice.org templates that business people will likely find indispensable is Sun Microsystems' own Professional Template Pack, which provides an abundance of templates for business letters, presentation backgrounds, and worksheets.

Preview your templates in OpenOffice.org apps
Before you can select the right template for your needs, you need to be able to see it. Previewing templates in OpenOffice.org apps isn't as easy as you might think. If you click File > Templates > Organize, you see the templates installed on your system and can place them in new or different folders, but you can't see what they look like.

You can view some of the templates via the applications' wizards: click File > Wizards, and choose one of the top five categories. When the wizard opens, choose From template and select one of the templates listed in the window below the radio buttons.

Another way to get a glimpse of your templates is to click File > New > Templates and Documents. With Templates selected in the left pane (it should be highlighted automatically), double-click a folder in the middle pane to view the templates in that category. Select one to preview it in the right pane. When you find one you like, click Open and start entering your data.

A wonderful resource for OpenOffice.org templates, tips, and tutorials is Kaaredyret's all-purpose site.

Monday: customize Windows' context (right-click) menu.

At a report-planning meeting last week I volunteered to add a timeline to a Word document that would ultimately become a PDF file. I could've used Word or Excel to create a horizontal timeline with about a dozen events, each denoted by a text box big enough to accommodate five or six words.

Instead, I went to Microsoft's Office templates site and downloaded one of the free service's many timelines for Word. Enter "timeline" (or the term of your choice) in the site's search box to retrieve links to a couple dozen time-related diagrams available for download.

Simply create, reposition, and resize as many text boxes as the timeline requires, and then overwrite the template's text. Makes any changes you want to the format, background colors, and other aspects of the template, save the file with a unique name, and the project's done.

If you have created an Office template you would like to share with the world, use Microsoft's template-submission tool, which requires an Office Online login (a Hotmail or other Passport account will work). The template has to be less than 2MB in size and meet other restrictions. The submission tool scans the file and attempts to categorize it, but you can pick the category and describe your template. Accept Microsoft's terms of use, and then click the Upload button.

Other free and commercial Office templates
HP offers a great selection of Office templates for small businesses. Some of the site's Powerpoint templates are particularly eye-catching.

For a wider selection of business templates, check out OfficeReady Professional, a $70 collection of templates for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (30-day free trial). The templates can be used to create e-mail and print newsletters, flyers, brochures, stationery, and reports. Sales and marketing plans, invoices, and other business forms are well represented in the package.

Tomorrow: delay sending messages in Microsoft Outlook.

If you're running a business, there's no substitute for professionally created stationery with your company's logo and other information in the letterhead. You need to communicate to your clients and customers that your organization is legitimate, and a knockoff letterhead with a generic graphic is a dead giveaway of a low-budget operation.

At the same time, you may have occasion to create a one-off letterhead for a special event or side project that doesn't require anything fancy, and that you don't want to spend a lot of time or money to generate. Microsoft Word lets you fashion such a letterhead in just a few minutes. Keep in mind that this is a quick-and-dirty way to give your documents a unique appearance, and no substitute for a stationer's wares.

The no-muss, no-fuss letterhead template
Start by opening a new blank document in Word and saving it as a template, using the .dot extension for Word 2003, or the .dotx extension for Word 2007. Give the new template a unique name, such as "quickletterhead1.dotx", and save it in your templates folder so it will be available when you create another document from a template.

In Word 2007, click Insert > Header > Blank, and in Word 2003, click View > Header and Footer. In both versions, enter your preferred letterhead text (organization name, address, phone, e-mail, etc.), and then click Insert > Picture (> From File in Word 2003). Navigate to and select the image you want to embed in the letterhead. (If you're using a large image, open and resize the picture in Paint or another image editor before you add it to your letterhead, or choose one of the appropriately sized clip-art images built into Windows.) Right-click the image and choose Format Picture.

Use the options in the Format Picture dialog box to add a drop shadow to the image, resize it, or make other changes. When the image looks the way you like it, click the Layout tab in Word 2003 and choose a wrapping style other than the default "In line with text." Click OK in Word 2003, or Close in Word 2007.

Now use your mouse to drag the image to the position you prefer in the header. You can use the controls along the image's edge to resize it manually, or drag the little green circle at the top to rotate the picture. When you're happy with the image's size and position, click Close on the Header and Footer toolbar in Word 2003, or click anywhere outside the header in Word 2007 to see how your letterhead will look.

When you want to create a document using your custom letterhead, click File > New in Word 2003, or choose the Office button and click New in Word 2007. Choose "On my computer" under Templates in the New Documents pane of Word 2003, select it from the list that appears under the General tab of the Templates dialog box, and click OK. In Word 2007, select your letterhead template under Recently Used Templates, or if it's not listed there, click "New from existing" in the top-left pane, navigate to the template you just created, and click Open.

Tomorrow: troubleshoot problems with Windows Update.