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Corporate Image Word Templates

Note: only letter templates are available at present; memo and fax templates to follow.

Description

The links below may be used to download the template appropriate to your computer/printer combination.

The template requires very minor adaptation to personalise it for your own use. Instructions, if required, can be found below in the section How to use the templates.

These templates may be subject to further revision and are likely to be supplemented through time. You are encouraged to revisit this page on an occasional basis to check what has modified or added.

The templates

Instructions for using the templates

The template toolkit

To facilitate good practice usage with correspondence deploying the University's new corporate image, IT Services are working with the design team to produce a small set of Word 97 templates. The design team has not taken a proscriptive line with respect to font usage. The recommendation is wherever possible that correspondence utilise Univers font. However, three other fonts are indicated as possible alternatives for those who do not have Univers on their computers.

Thus four Word 97 templates are being provided, one for each of the four fonts. We may be able to provide templates for other variants of Word at a later date (Word 6 for PC and Word for Macintosh are both possibilities), so check the Web page every so often to see how the toolkit expands through time.

The initial template toolkit consists of the following:

Downloadable filename Description
lettar97.dot Word 97 template using 9/14 Arial font
lettba97.dot Word 97 template using 9/14 Book Antiqua font (pending full approval by design team)
lettpa97.dot Word 97 template using 9/14 Palatino font (pending full approval by design team)
Coming soon:
lettun97.dot Word 97 template using 9/14 Univers font

It should be noted that the templates are provided for use with preprinted stationery only. They do not provide a corporate image look-and-feel for graphical printing on plain paper—the design team does not wish to encourage use on plain paper.

How to use the templates

  1. Check font availability on your copy of Word. The quickest way of doing this is to click the font box on the Formatting Toolbar. You can quickly scan down the list of fonts to see which of Univers, Palatino, Book Antiqua or Arial are available for use and decide which of the templates it will be appropriate for you to download to your computer. (Arial has been included because it is consistent in design terms and is available on all computers with Microsoft Windows.)

  2. Having decided which font you wish to use, simply click the Web link to download this font to your computer. You will be presented with a dialog box asking where you wish to store the downloaded file. You should store the file wherever you keep your personal templates for letter correspondence.

    Note: If you do not know this information, you can determine what folder is used for this purpose via Word's menu:

    Tools | Options
    Click the "File Locations" tab and inspect the folder for "User templates". Most users will find this location to be a folder of the form h:\msoffice\templates. You are likely to find that this folder itself contains subfolders, and you are recommended to save the template in the Letters subfolder if you have one.

    Typically, therefore you would provide a filename of the form:

    h:\msoffice\templates\letters\lettar97.dot
    Note that the filename extension is .dot (not the more usual .doc) because this is a template, not a normal Word document. It is very important that you save the file as a template.

  3. Personalise your template. You will need to open it carefully as a template in Word.

    To do so, choose

    File | Open
    and for "Files of type", choose "Document Templates". You will probably need to double click the Letters folder before seeing the file you downloaded. Click it, then press the Open button.

    There are two lines which you need to edit for yourself. In either case, the text you need to change is delimited within square brackets so you can easily identify it.

    Locate the text string [YourName], and very carefully substitute this with your own name, removing the square brackets as you do so. Be especially careful that you do not modify any part of the document outside the delimited area. It works by means of hidden field codes which will not operate properly if inadvertently deleted.

    Note: If you prefer, you can make the field codes visible whilst you make your edits so that you can feel confident you are not accidentally disrupting the functionality of the template. To do this, choose Tools | Options, click the View tab, and tick the "Field codes" checkbox. In this case, remember to repeat this process after you make your edits, so that you reverse this setting before you save the template.

    If there is a requirement for you to word-process correspondence for other people in your department, it is envisaged that you will establish a template for each member of staff. Simply make multiple copies of the template and assign them logical names meaningful to you and your colleagues (ensuring that all the template filenames end with the .dot filename extension). Some departments may wish to save sharable templates in the "Workgroup templates" folder on a fileserver, so check with your Network Supervisor or IT support staff if you think this may be applicable to you. A template which you save in your User templates folder will only be usable by you or anyone else in your department who also uses your computer.

    Now replace the text string [YourJobTitle] with your personal designation.

    Do not modify any text enclosed within angle brackets – processing of these document elements is automated when you use the template.

  4. Carefully save your template back to disk. Because you opened the file as a template, you should be able to do this by simply clicking the Save button on the toolbar, then close the file without a further save. (If you are unsure whether the file is being opened and saved as a template you can force Word to save in the relevant format by choosing
    File | Save As
    and ensuring that you select "Save as type" and set it to "Document Template".

  5. Your template is now ready for use. When you start a new document with
    File | New
    you will be presented with a set of templates. (Remember to click on the Letters tab if you stored the template in a Letters subfolder.)

    Just follow the on-screen instructions then print or save your correspondence in the usual way.

These templates have been designed to keep things as simple as possible. They use Word features such as field codes and rudimentary macros and they also use paragraph settings to specify a precise typographic leading. Whilst it is not necessary to understand these features in order to use the templates, all serious users of Microsoft Word should have a basic understanding of these concepts and skills.

If you wish to adapt the templates (for mail-merge operations, for instance) and are not already familiar with these concepts, you will find it beneficial to progress your Word skills. You are reminded that the University arranges a variety of staff development courses on Word each term. Amongst many other items, The Intermediate Word 97 for Windows course includes helpful information about using, modifying or creating templates. The Further Word 97 for Windows course covers a number of features including the types of field code and basic macros used in these corporate image templates. It also considers typographic use of Word as a true desktop publishing tool for fine pointsize or leading control. For details of these and other courses, please consult the Staff Development Programme brochure sent termly to all University staff.

Further possibilities

You may wish to have letterhead stationery loaded in one paper tray and continuation stationery in another tray. IT Services cannot set this up to everyone's specification because both printers and practices differ around campus. However it is a simple matter to customise your template to preference.

Open the template as described earlier. Choose

File | Page Setup
Click the "Paper Source" tab and establish settings for "First page" and "Other pages" to your preference. Take care to indicate "Apply to: Whole document" before clicking the OK button and resaving your template. (This is because the template has been constructed in two "sections", the first establishes parameters for the initial page and the second section defines the appearance of continuation pages.)

[Word templates page, revision 1.0]


Page prepared by Dave Murie, IT Services | Last updated 12 January 2001