- What's New in Office 2003
- Setting Up Office File Storage Locations
- Managing Files and Folders on a SharePoint Server
- Creating New Files
- Using and Customizing Common Dialog Boxes
- Storing Document Details
- Searching for Office Files
- Working with Multiple Files
- Setting Up Automatic Backup and Recovery Options
- Troubleshooting
- Secrets of the Office Masters: Details, Details
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Troubleshooting
Putting Templates in Their Place
I created a group of templates and saved them along with the standard Office templates in the %programfiles%\Microsoft Office\Templates\1033 folder. But when I choose File, New, none of my custom templates are visible.
Microsoft designed the folder that stores system templates so that users cannot add templates to it. Instead, you should save your templates to the default User Templates location. The safest way to save templates to this location is one at a time. If you choose Template from the Files of Type list in the Save As dialog box, all Office programs will save your work to the correct location. If you want to add a large number of files to this location, open Word and choose Tools, Options; then click the File Locations tab and verify the User Templates location.
No Preview in Common Dialog Boxes
I selected Preview from the drop-down menu of views in an Office common dialog box, but when I click a file in the pane on the left, Windows displays the words Preview not available instead of showing my file.
The preview pane shows a static snapshot of the document as it existed the last time you saved it. By default, this option is not selected because it tends to add roughly 60KB to every file that you create. To make this preview picture available, you must choose File, Properties and check the Save Preview Picture box on the Summary tab. You can do this at any time with a Word document or PowerPoint presentation. However, this option is effective with Excel workbooks only if you use it when you first create the file. Checking this box on an Excel workbook after you've saved it with this option off has no effect at all. To enable the preview, select the Save Preview Picture check box and save the file under a new name. Then close the file and use Windows Explorer to delete the old version and rename the new one with the old name.
Bringing Back the Office Shortcuts
On my old computer, Office installed two shortcuts at the top of the Start menu that allowed me to open an existing file or create a new one. On a new computer with Office 2003, these shortcuts are gone. How do I get them back?
For this version, the Office interface designers had a mandate to remove clutter, and those shortcuts were high on the list of unnecessary icons to be removed.
To bring back the two shortcuts, open Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs option, select the entry for your version of Office, and click Change. Choose the Add or Remove Features Option and click Next. Select the Choose Advanced Customization of Applications check box and click Next. Expand the Office Shared Features category, click the arrow to the left of the New and Open Office Document Shortcuts entry, and change its status to Run From My Computer. Click Update to add the shortcuts.