Example templates

The easiest and most effective way to understand what we can achieve with Word is to see the templates working live. We would very happy to come and show you some of our work for other clients and discuss any issues you have. Alternatively here is a slightly clunky video of a letter template.

Below there are a series of example template features in Word 2007 and 2003. The functionality and capability is very similar in Word 2007 and 2003  and the principal difference is whether it is accessed by a toolbar (2003) or a tab in the ribbon (2007).

For some clients who have migrated to Office 2007 we have modified their existing templates so that they are fully Word 2007 enabled. For others we have developed them wholly in Word 2007.

We have included the following examples:

  1. Report template - including ribbon modification 2007
  2. Toolbars
  3. Letter template
  4. Quick print routine
  5. Auto daily report - linking with Excel
  6. Report
  7. Legal numbered template
  8. Legal invoice template

1. Report template - including ribbon modification

On creating a new report document from the template the usual 'New Report' dialog box is displayed:

On pressing the OK button a new report document is created with a the relevant boiler plate pages as a starting structure.

In addition there is a new tab on the ribbon which contains various buttons. Some are standard Word options eg Save and SaveAs which are now buried down a few levels in the new ribbon. Others are special style and macro buttons allowing the user to create and format their new report very quickly.

Below is a larger image of a section of the new tab to give a better idea of some of the special buttons that have been created: 

The new Word 2007 ribbon allows far more flexibility in the buttons types and grouping. In the example above three new groups of buttons for this specific report have been added:

  1. Paragraph styles - Word 2007 makes it more difficult to quickly apply paragraph styles and we find that quick access is very important.
  2. Tables - a company table style has been created as part of the template and easy to use buttons allow the user to quickly create a new table formatted with the company style.
  3. Insert - this group contains a number of special buttons for example:

    Insert Landscape section - allows the user to insert a new landscape section at any point in the document. All the headers and footers are set correctly.

    Update header text - all headers contain two lines of text (entered by the user in the New Report dialog box). The text can be changed using this button and the changes are done to all headers.

2. Toolbars (Word 2003 templates)

  . . .

. . .

All our templates make use of a customised toolbar that will be displayed whenever a new document is created or opened. They contain a set of buttons and drop-down lists that allow quick access to the following:

  1. Styles – buttons for applying the pre-defined styles eg Heading, Normal, Bullet styles
  2. Macro buttons – various macros that have been specifically written for the template. Some examples are:
    - Reset/change the letter date.
    - Checking the version of the office address or partners list and allowing the user to update if required.
    - Print to Letterhead paper - temporarily removing the company logo and address block.

 

3. Letter template

Projects often start with letter templates. For law firms who produce them in very large numbers they are crucial to improving productivity and seamless integration with document management systems. At the same time they enhance the consistency and professionalism of their presentation.

New letter dialog box

Below is a typical New letter dialog which is displayed when a new letter document is created.

Some of the dialog features are:

  1. A drop down list to select the office location. This allows the user to select the correct office address details to be inserted into the new letter document. All the data is kept in an external data file so is very easy to change by the client when a new office is opened or relocated. 
  2. Dear field - if 'Sir' or 'Madam' is inserted into this field then the Signoff box will automatically change to 'Yours faithfully' and the 'Name' field will change to the company name.
  3. Standard text - This allows predefined letter text to be inserted into the new letter document. All the text is held in standard Word documents so it can be fully formatted and can contain tables and images if required.

On pressing the OK button a new letter document is created with all the information in place. The cursor is placed ready to start typing the body of the letter.

The new letter contains all the pre-printed text and graphics on the letterhead stationery.

Some of the added features:

  1. Toolbar - all 2003 templates have dedicated toolbars which contain a series of buttons. For example buttons to select corporate paragraph styles and 'Print to letterhead' (suppresses pre-printed elements) or 'Check partners list' using macros.
  2. Company logo is included in the document, copying the letterhead, allowing the document to be emailed as either a Word document or pdf.
  3. Company address details inserted into the document from an external data file.
  4. Cursor placed in the correct place for typing.

4. Quick Print routine 

For clients who regularly create a large numbers of letters each day we have created a quick and easy print routine allowing the final letters to be quickly printed to the correct paper.

This print routine can be accessible in two ways:

Option 1 - Print dialog box

Where there are a large number regularly used print options we have developed a simple, but comprehensive print dialog box.  Knowing the printer setup and which paper trays hold the letterhead, continuation and plain paper we can build a macro to select all the options from a single window. The result is illustrated below:

 

Option 2 - Quick print buttons on the toolbar

In very busy offices, where three clicks are too much, an alternative facility is to have some single click buttons on the toolbar eg  'Print to Letterhead' or 'Print to Plain paper'.

Below is a section of a toolbar showing the H button - Print to headed paper, and P button- Print to plain paper

. . .

The user can select the default printer for these buttons by using the SetDefaultPrinters button. The following dialog box is then displayed allowing the user to select the required printer from a drop down list.

5. Auto daily report template - linking to Excel

Many clients handle large amounts of data and need to work in Excel. However when they need to produce more professional and accessible reports they have to use Word because in Excel it is impossible to deliver precise and consistent formatting. As a result it is often a time consuming task to transfer the information manually from Excel into a sophisticated Word layout and liable to error.

For a number of clients we have automated this process. One button on the Excel worksheet opens a bespoke template and creates a crisp professional Word document. One client calculated that our system has saved two hours a day to produce their daily flyer.

Intraday report

We built an Excel worksheet for Energy Quote from which they could generate a report in Word to send to their clients. There are three buttons for the morning, midday and afternoon versions. The sheet is fed directly from a live Reuters feed. As well as the current price there is a graph of one year's price movements. The graph automatically resets the date to move on by one day, every day.

To create a new flyer all the user need to do is:

  • Click the Update graphs button to reset the five graph ranges to contain the last years data (from today's date).
  • Click the Create Morning/Midday/Afternoon report button to automatically generate the flyer as a Word document.

The Word template lays out the data in line with the detailed layouts prepared by their designers. The three alternative reports are differentiated by  the banners at the top of the page and the afternoon version also allows Energy Quote to add their round up commentary on the day.  

6. Report template

We have created numerous report templates for a wide variety of different clients. Each one is specific to their brand guidelines and the type of reports they create. In all cases the resulting template allows users to spend their time on the contents of the report and not waste time on sorting out the layout.

All report templates contain a 'New report' dialog box in which the user selects the required options for the new report.

Below is a typical example: 

Pressing the OK button creates a new document with the required boilerplate pages. All templates have a bespoke toolbar which is always displayed while the document is open.

Below is a more detailed image of the bespoke toolbar:

. . .

. . .

The first part of the toolbar contains the paragraph style buttons. These allow users to quickly apply the required style to the text in the document.

The second part of the toolbar contains macro buttons. For example:

  • Insert table - allows the user to insert a new table formatted with pre-defined corporate layout.
  • Format table - allows the user to format existing table with the pre-defined corporate layout
  • Update header text - allows the user to update the text that appears in the header
  • Insert Landscape section - allows the user to insert a new landscape section at any point in the document. All the headers and footers are set correctly.

These are just a few of the features added as standard to our report templates.

7. Legal numbered template

Many of our clients use legal templates where all headings and paragraphs have to be numbered.

The main issue with a legal numbered template is that different departments use the numbering in very different ways. For example Litigation departments only tend to use two levels of numbering while Property departments may find six levels restricting.

The art of developing a legal numbered template is to create a single template with two levels of toolbar. The top level toolbar has all the typical functions and then there is a sub toolbar offering the additional numbering options to those departments that need it.

Below is the initial toolbar used by the majority of departments:

with an additional toolbar is available for departments that require all six levels of numbering:

. . .

Below is an example of 6 levels of numbering:

8. Legal invoice template

For a number of our clients we have been asked to create an invoice template as a temporary solution until they get their accounting system adapted to create the invoices in the layout required.

In most cases our invoice template has never been replaced by the accounts system as they could never replicated the layout design and the template allowed invoices to be created swiftly that it is easy to justify its continual use.

Below is an example of the figures screen:

This screen is used to input all the figures.  On pressing the OK button the macro will calculate the VAT and totals and update the document.

Below is an example of the generated figures in the actual document.

To make any changes to these figures the user repressed the 'Figures' button and the dialog box will be redisplayed with the figures that can be updated.

Login