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Saving the Template
Saving your template is easy. Remember: If you are creating original work that you want to save both as a Word file and as a template, be sure that the final text is saved as a document first. Are you paying attention? I'm not kidding here. Then remove extraneous text and save it as a Document Template, giving it a good template name such as article or user guide.
Saving your work as a template automatically makes the file extension .dot rather than .doc. Further, Word 2003 automatically whisks it away to store it in a secret location, which I share with you now:
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
where Username stands for your logon name.
There are excellent reasons for templates to be stored in this location. Unfortunately, it means that you must navigate to this location any time you want to change your template or delete it. This can be trickier in Windows XP than you might think because you might start browsing for your template files and hit a dead end—unable to see the Application Data folder, for example. If this happens, it is because some of your folders are hidden. To change this setting and display hidden file folders, you can click Control Panel>Folder Options>View>Hidden Files and Folders>Show Hidden Files and Folders. This is something you are not required to memorize at this time because it is listed in the Help files for Windows XP. I just wanted you to know that you might need to look for it.