Template Folder Location in Word 2007

Don is having a problem with Word 2007. He is curious as to where the template folder is located in this version. He created a template and added it to what he thought was the template folder, but the template doesn't show up in the New Document templates.

The location for templates in Word 2007 is the same as it has been in other versions of Word. If you want to see what Word considers the location, then follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click Advanced at the left side of the dialog box.
3. Scroll through the list of options until you see the General section.
4. Click the File Locations button. Word displays the File Locations dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)

In the File Locations dialog box you can see the folders in which Word presumes you store both user templates and workgroup templates.

There is a difference in Word 2007 in how this location is handled when compared to earlier versions. The difference is that Word 2007 doesn't default to that folder when you are saving a file as a template. The reason for this change is security; the templates folder is trusted, meaning that any macro stored there is trusted by Word. To avoid the chance of placing an unwanted macro into a trusted location, Word 2007 doesn't store templates, by default, in the templates folder used by the program.

Fortunately, the template folder is now a default "place" in the hierarchy shown at the left side of the Save As dialog box. Click Templates in the hierarchy and the file will be saved in the proper templates location (the same one you saw in the File Locations dialog box). When you later want to create a new document based on the template, in the New Document dialog box you can select My Templates at the left side of the dialog box and see the templates that you've saved.