You don't need to have a good knowledge of Word to create a professional document
A custom document template will do all the hard work for you. Our document templates take care of all the formatting and layout. You don’t need to spend hours getting the formatting right. We set up all the styles for you. And the styles are reliable – you won't experience sudden changes in font sizes. We set up headings, text boxes and tables to use your corporate colour palette. You can immediately set the format at the press a button. You can even insert a landscape page at the click of a button.
The paragraph spacing, margins and the page headers and footers are set up for you. You don't even need to edit the page headers and footers. They can be populated automatically with your report or proposal title, client name, date or anything else you want to put at the top and bottom of each page.
So what are the benefits of a custom Word document template?
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Spend less time producing documents and more time on other aspects of your business.
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Maintain your brand throughout your documents.
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Ensure consistent formatting throughout your documents – tables will always use the same colour shading and borders, headings will all be the correct font size and consistently numbered.
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Ensure a standardised structure and layout to all your documents – consistent headers, footers, margins and cover pages.
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Minimal training and no new software to learn or master. A custom template is just a Microsoft® Word document with some additional functionality. You still use the Microsoft Office environment. You can still copy and paste between documents. You can still use all of Word's standard functions such as spellcheck, track changes and cross-references.
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Provides a user-friendly environment to work with.
Table styles
Custom table styles will ensure all your tables are uniformly and correctly formatted. Either create a standard Word table or copy and paste a table from Excel or another Word document. All you need to do is click a custom button and the table will be automatically formatted using your corporate colours. You can also select cells, rows and columns to be shaded or have a border applied, click a button and the correct colour shading or border will be applied.
Click a button to format a table in your house style.
In this example the user can choose from 3 different table formats.
Reliable images and text boxes
Click a button to insert an image that sits nicely on the page and doesn’t jump around the document. Easily insert margin images that are correctly sized to fit in the margin and will move with the text it sits alongside. Similarly, easily insert coloured text boxes and breakout boxes in the correct corporate colours and the correct position; in the main body of the document, with text wrapping around it or in the margin.
Click a button to insert a text box in the margin.
In this example the user can choose from 6 different margin boxes.
Custom ribbon
We can provide a custom ribbon tab with all the buttons you need to create your proposal. You don't need to hunt around the standard Word ribbon to find a particular function. All the functions you need are on the one custom ribbon tab. You can still use the standard Word ribbon tabs if you want to.
Landscape pages
If you know how to insert a landscape page manually you may find that the headers and footers disappear and sometimes it can scramble the whole document. We can provide a custom function that will insert a new landscape page but ensure it does not affect the rest of the document. Page headers and footers are not affected; in fact they will be adjusted so any logos will appear in the correct position, lines will stretch across the page and the footer details will be displayed where they should be, at the bottom of the page.
Click a button to insert a landscape section.
The margins and headers and footers will be automatically adjusted for you.
Other possible Word automated features
Automatic table of contents with options to display different heading levels.
Select a level from the drop-down list.
If you select Level 1 only, only main headings will be displayed in the table of contents.
If you select Levels 1 and 2, main headings and subheadings will be displayed.
If you select Levels 1,2 and 3, all headings will be displayed.
Option to hide logos and any other preprinted letterhead elements so a document or letter can be printed on preprinted letterhead paper. Redisplay the logo and preprinted elements for an electronic letter.
Use a single template for multiple offices, brands, products, etc. Choose an office, brand or product from a drop-down list and that office’s address or the correct branding and product colours will be added to the document.
You don’t need to type in your contact details every time you write a letter or report. The template can remember your details so they are automatically entered each time you create a document.
There are many other features and functions we can create to help you produce your documents quickly and easily. Just because we haven’t mentioned a particular function you would find really useful here doesn’t mean we can’t do it. Please do not hesitate to ask us if we can customise something for you. There are endless possibilities with Word!
How to specify a Word template
What we need to know if you would like us to develop a Word template for you.
Do you have the design and layout for your document?
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We would normally need to see an example of the design and layout of your document before we can provide a quotation.
Is there a cover page?
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What details do you want on the cover page?
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Any logos, contact details, partner logos?
Is there a back page?
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What details do you need on the back page?
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Any logos, contact details, partner logos?
Do you require an automatic table of contents?
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What heading levels do you want to display in the table of contents?
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Will the heading levels vary (e.g. you may want to display level 1 headings only but sometimes you might want to include level 2 headings too)?
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Do you require separate tables of appendices, figures, tables?
What size are your margins?
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Do you have a wider left margin for margin images and text?
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Do you have a larger top margin for the beginning of chapters/sections?
What do you want to display in the page headers and footers?
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Do you need to be able to edit free text in the header or footer?
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Do you want the header or footer to display the report title, subtitle, other details from the cover page, or the chapter or section heading?
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Do you require different headers and footers for left- and right-hand pages?
Where do you want page numbers to be displayed?
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How do you want them formatted?
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Do you want Page x of y or Page x or just x?
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How do you want to format appendix page numbers? Or introductory section page numbers?
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Where should page numbers start? After the table of contents page?
What headings and sub headings do you require?
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How many levels of headings?
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Do you want numbered headings? Only numbered headings or some unnumbered headings too?
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How should numbered headings be formatted (e.g. 1. or 1 or 1.0 or 1)?
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How should numbered sub headings be formatted (e.g. 1.1, 1.1.1)?
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How do you want to separate the heading number and the heading text (e.g. with a space or a tab or a colon)?
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If the heading is more than one line do you want the second line to start under the heading number or be indented under the first line of heading text?
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What font colour and size for your headings? Do you want bold or italics?
What paragraph styles do you require?
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Standard body text? Larger text for introductory paragraphs? Quoted text? Small text for notes?
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How do you want paragraphs to be formatted? Font size, colour, line spacing, paragraph spacing?
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Do you want justified text?
Do you use tables?
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Do you require table styles and format?
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What colour borders and shading?
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Will the font size or colour be different to standard paragraphs?
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Will the table have different formatting for the header row, or the first column, or a total row?
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Will you be inserting images?
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How do you want images to be displayed?
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With text wrapped around?
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With a border around?
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Side by side in a two-column layout?
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In the margin?
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Do you want to be able to add captions or a figure heading?
Do you need landscape pages?
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Do you want landscape pages to have the same header and footer and margins as portrait pages?
Do you do a lot of copying and pasting from other documents and find you lose formatting?
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Do you find your formatting goes awry or headers and footers get overwritten or the margin settings change?
Do you want to be able to change the page layout?
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To a two-column or a three-column layout?
Do you often insert standard paragraphs of text?
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Would a text library be useful where all your standard paragraphs are stored in a central folder and you can select the paragraph to insert from a drop-down list?
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The standard paragraphs can include tables, images, graphs and diagrams as well as text and can be more than one paragraph or page.
Do your documents need to be accessible?
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We need to consider font size, document layout, the design of tables and image alt tags if your electronic documents need to be accessible to people with disabilities.
If it’s a letterhead:-
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Do you want to be able to print out on preprinted paper?
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Do you want an electronic letterhead to be emailed to people?
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Do you want an opening input box to prompt letter writers for the references, subject, recipient details, sender’s details?
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Do you want the sender’s details to be entered automatically so they don’t need to keep typing in their name, telephone number, email address, etc?
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Do you want to be able to choose the sender’s name from a drop-down list and their name, telephone number and email address will be entered automatically?
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Do you have multiple offices?
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Do you want one letterhead for all your offices and you can choose the office from a drop-down list? That would then automatically add the correct office address and details.
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"Most of our members use Microsoft Word to create documents; Expert Office Documents provided a high level of technical expertise to allow us not only to use professional branding but also to make the process of personalising the template easy and effective.
"We were delighted with the templates Expert Office Documents produced - cost-efficient and time-effective."
Chris James, Head of Corporate Communications, The Scout Association