T Stands for Templates and Time

Let’s start with Templates.

What is a template?

In its simplest form, a template is a document you have created (or one already created for you) in which you store information and/ or data that will be unchangeable and you use over and over. It’s like creating a * shell * document and some of you might refer to or know this type of document as a boilerplate.

For instance, you can create your company invoice as a template, with logo and design, and call up template each time you need to send out an invoice. You can create a template for your letterhead, including your headers and footers. You can create templates for your different size envelopes with return address stored in place, create a template for your in-house memos, and timesheets. Whatever you can think of! Whatever type of document you are finding yourself continually having to recreate, make a template and be done with it!

All that’s left for you to do is to open template, and insert new information that’s needed. Example: If you’re doing an invoice, you would type in appropriate information and then use your SAVE AS function (I wrote about this function in June issue at http://www.overhall.com/jun00.htm ).

Microsoft has built in templates, with step-by-step instructions of how you can customize them for your company or home use.

There are two different ways to see what templates are available to you.

Here is how to access them:

Click on START Move Pointer to New Office Documents (This function is also on your Office Shortcut Bar) and Click.

A box will appear that presents you with many Tabs to choose from and within those Tabs many templates to choose from.

Go ahead, click on some and play around with them. When you have created YOUR template use SAVE AS function.

You can also access some templates when you are in Microsoft Word. At top of screen, left hand side (make sure you have opened a document or have started a new document) Click FILE and Click on NEW.

At some time you might find that you have created a document that you will want to save in more then one place, such as another folder. Maybe you’ll need to save your document to another media, such as a floppy or zip disk, or a CD Write. And maybe you have created a beautiful document that you would like to use over and over again except some of content will change and document might need to be filed in a different folder, have a different name, or filed in a different format.

On my computer I’ve created several templates (like a pattern) for my business, such as my letterhead, envelopes, and invoices. I don’t want to recreate these sometimes-laborious documents every time I need to send out correspondence. But I do need to enter new content in body of document. I can open up template I need to use, type in new information and do a SAVE AS to save * new * document to it’s proper folder AND KEEP template as a * blank * document and in it’s proper folder.

Using exercise we did in Part 4-a of D-BUST Your Computer (May issue), let’s open document, Hair Meeting 61200 that we had filed in Larry Folder. You want to keep Hair Meeting 61200 * intact * but you need to change some of content to send out to MOE and save this slightly altered document in your MOE folder. Make your changes and then:

~~ Move POINTER to File and CLICK ~~ Move POINTER to SAVE AS and CLICK

A SAVE AS Box will appear. Notice three sections: Save in:, File name:, and Save as type:.

The Save in: section should have last folder name that you saved a document to. In this case you want to save your document in your * MOE * folder, which is located in Clients folder, which is located in MY DOCUMENTS folder.

~~ CLICK small black down arrow next to folder name in Save in: ~~ CLICK on MY DOCUMENTS ~~ Locate CLIENTS Folder in box and DOUBLE CLICK on it ~~ The CLIENTS folder should now be in Save in: section ~~ Locate and move your POINTER to * MOE * folder and DOUBLE CLICK on it ~~ The * MOE * folder is now in Save in: section

Now you have to give your document a name.

~~ PRESS Your TAB Key to move to File name: or move POINTER to File name: and CLICK.

~~ Something will already be there BUT you want to give document a name you will remember and can easily locate when needed.

TIP: You can keep same document name or change it.

~~ Type in new name you want to give your document or leave same ~~ Press ENTER/RETURN OR ~~ Move POINTER to SAVE and CLICK

WARNING WARNING!! DO NOT do above if you need to SAVE document in a DIFFERENT FILE FORMAT, such as TEXT or HTML Code.

Save as type: default is usually Word Document but notice small black arrow next to this and CLICK on it. Here is where you are presented with a list of file types that you might need to save your document into.

Now you have two different documents in two different folders.