Changing default settings in Word and Excel through the underlying Templates

Using normal.dot and book.xlt

Many settings in both Word and Excel are controlled by the underlying template that is opened when you open a blank document.  Here briefly are some tips on controlling these templates.  Please note that in a well designed office system these templates are probably already customized for your firm’s particular needs. Therefore be careful what you do when editing them.  Furthermore, it is possible that your firm enforces a standardized default template, especially in Word.  BOC customarily accomplishes this by copying a centralized template into the proper user directory at each login.  This allows the firm to easily update the template for everybody through a centralized process.  It will also frustrate your efforts to change your template.   You may be able to make changes now, but these may be erased at your next logon.  If so, you probably want to consult with your system administrator about making changes to the standard template. 

WORD

Word’s underlying template is called normal.dot.  To find out where it is located, go to the Tools/Options menu and then select the File Locations tab. User templates is where you’ll find normal.dot.  If you can’t see the full path in this view, click on the Modify button and the whole path will be revealed.  To edit it, select File/Open from the menu and make sure the File-Type at the bottom of the open dialog box has Template Documents (*.dot) selected.  Now navigate to the appropriate path to find and open normal.dot.  Once opened you may go ahead and make whatever changes you wish.  When you save this document, all subsequent blank documents will reflect these changes.

EXCEL

In order to change default settings in Excel, you will follow a similar process to that for WORD.  In contrast to WORD, EXCEL does not start with an normal.dot template.  Instead the defaults are built into the program itself.  However, you can override these defaults by creating your own default template.  Whereas WORD uses .dot files as templates, Excel templates use the extension .xlt.  To create a default template, simply open Excel, make whatever default changes you would like in this blank spreadsheet, then save it as book.xlt.  There are a couple tricks to making this work when you go to save it.  First, you must place it in the XLStart directory.  You can find it by searching with the Find utility.  When ready, from within Excel use the File/Save As menu, navigate to the XLStart directory, and make sure you select Template (*.xlt) as the file type.  Save the spreadsheet with the name book.xlt.  That completes the process.