Tips for creating MS Word templates?

[Cathy]

Before anyone decides to hang me, please note that my need for doing this is so that non-designers within my company can use materials that have been somewhat designed for them from the start in effort to keep brand consistancy strong. Not all of our materials are done this way... just a hand-ful that we need non-designers to finalize.

I am looking for any helpful suggestions on this subject before we totally embark on this project. I searched the net and came up with two links which provide some insite, much of which I already knew. We are including graphic headers in the background (header or footer most likely) and would like to have certain beginning areas for text set up so that it prompts the user, or forces them to, use a certain type style.

Any tips you have are most appreciated! Thanks!!

[cmont]

http://www.mvps.org/links.html#Word

This link might send you in the right direction, its a bunch of Microsoft Word MVP's tha have sites with plenty of TuTs on them. Enjoy, as I know how much this is a pain. I told my company to forget about it and make them go through me for everything, even a simple letter head. :::cough::: job security :::cough:::

[Mynock]

A simple forum search could have yielded results as so:
http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1174
http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9957
but that would have been too much.

[Cathy]

Excellent. Thanks!!!

[doubting_thomas]

Before anyone decides to hang me...

:D Word is just fine as long as it's used for word processing. When one stops
playing to it's strengths, projects can drop into the pot.