Word Templates and Letter Templates

Custom Word templates can greatly increase productivity and efficiency and reduce errors. Word templates can be developed to represent a particular house style, add or remove specific Word features, automate various functions and perform validation checks. We have highlighted the benefits of using Microsoft® Office templates on our Templates page.

Boilerplate text

Business forms

Documents

Surveys

Reports

Tables

Company standard letters

Memos

Faxes

Minutes

Cost plans

Automated letter generation

Mail merge applications

Templates enable non-technical people to produce sophisticated and consistent letters and documents. All the formatting and layout is taken care of, users just need to concentrate on the content. Formatting can be pre-set in the template or it can be introduced automatically as the user goes along. This enables one template to be used for different types of document so making it easier for users to find the right template to use and become familiar with it. It also means there are less files to support.

Many of our templates feature dialog boxes to help the user input information. For letter templates, they can select a recipient’s name from their address book and the recipient’s address is automatically entered in the correct place on the letter. Report header details such as title, subtitle and date can be gathered through a dialog box then inserted on the cover page of the report and in the headers and footers.

Word templates can be customised to such an extent that you can intercept standard Word commands such as Save or Print. This means that you can force a document to be saved on a server rather than on the user's PC so that, for example, a sales letter is stored within a client document folder where it is accessible to the whole organisation, subject to a user's access rights.

We can add custom toolbars and menu items to Word and even remove certain menu options. For example, all the options to change font settings can be removed from a template so users can only use the font styles that are included in the template thereby ensuring all company documents are consistent in style.

We can create data entry forms in Word with text fields, drop-down option boxes and check boxes. Respondents can answer questions either online or print out the form and complete the answers by hand. If the form is completed online, answers can be validated, questions can be amended, enabled or disabled according to preceding answers and all the responses could be automatically exported to another application such as a database or an email.

Letter templates can be designed to look just like an organisation’s letterhead which enables letters to be emailed, converted to PDF format or faxed straight from the PC without having to print them out. Reports and documents can be formatted so they follow the same style as printed documents and marketing materials.

Examples of custom Word templates we have created

A Word add-in to insert paragraphs of standard boilerplate text into documents.
An automated application to run a mail merge procedure to send letters out to customers who had registered on the company web site. A data entry form enabled users to select various different letters to send to customers according to what they had registered for.
Custom Save and Print routines that validate entries and ensure specified formatting.
A letter template that connects to the Outlook® contacts folder to automatically insert the recipient's and sender's contact details into the letter.
Custom fax and memo templates that automatically add a user's department and location to the document footer. This enables the use of one template for all of a company's departments and locations so ensuring central control and facilitating style, formatting and address changes.
Templates that import tables and charts from Excel® without losing any of the chart formatting and sizing.

More information on Microsoft Office templates.

We also do Excel templates.

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