Style template that makes files update their style automatically

Question

I am writing a book made of many files. I design each file with the same styles (e.g. for headings and text body). Suppose later I want to change some styles (e.g. the heading font size), and keep it consistent throughout the book, without having to open each file and change it manually (similar to a style file in LaTeX). Is there a way I can create such a style file, that I can update once, and automatically all the documents using it will update accordingly?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 16 '21 at 14:08

1

You are looking to use Word Templates, using your own template in all the documents, so that when the template changes, all the documents change automatically.

Your documents will need to defined with the new template. For making it work, you will need:

Show the developer tab in Word
In the developer tab, click "Document Template", Templates tab, enable "Automatically update document styles" and click OK
To add the new template to an existing document as described in Apply template to an existing Word document file

The above modifications need to be done for all your documents. If attaching the templates one-by-one to many documents is too painful, and if you can cope with VBA, see the VBA macro in Batch Template Changes.

answered Aug 16 '21 at 14:08

harrymc

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Note that this still requires that the documents be opened at some point. The danger of this setting is that if the document can't find your template it will update using the styles in the user's normal template. Be sure to turn the option off before sending your document to someone else or opening on a different computer. See http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/sharing/willmyformatchange.html and http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/TextReflow.htm. These are the writings of Word MVPs on problems that can arise with this setting. – Charles Kenyon Aug 16 '21 at 16:12
This works, thanks! @CharlesKenyon thanks for the warning - I will keep that in mind. – Erel Segal-Halevi Aug 17 '21 at 18:30
One question: when I open the "Document Template" dialogue, I see the template path is an absolute path. Is there a way to make it a relative path, so that if I move the entire book to a different folder, the template link remains intact? – Erel Segal-Halevi Aug 17 '21 at 18:41
There is an undocumented feature of Word, that it searches multiple locations looking for the document template, starting with the document's folder. The solution is to keep the template and documents together in the same folder. I haven't tested this in the latest versions and can't testify that it still works. – harrymc Aug 17 '21 at 19:18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 16 '21 at 16:22

Look also into theme fonts.

See Changing Default Settings by Word MVP Suzanne Barnhill and my writing on Themes. You can save a custom theme with your settings. If you use theme fonts for your headings and body text, you can change them in any document using the theme by making a change to the theme.

If the theme does not exist on someone else's computer, though, I can't predict the results.

Style template that makes files update their style automatically

2 Answers2

Look also into theme fonts.