Question : Modifying default office templates through Group Policy

I'm trying to find the best way to modify everyone's default excel and word template files. New requirements have been set that require the file name and path to be present in the footer of the last page of every word document on the last page of every excel document. I've been researching and most of the solutions I've found have revolved around modifying the template, placing it on a share drive, and writing a script to copy the template to overwrite the present template for each machine upon login. Is this indeed the best way to approach this? I'd copy it directly (there are very few users) but I can't be certain that the same users will always use the same computers. Also, I know there's no way to retroactively effect previously created documents, but is there s simple way to create a macro of sorts to insert the file name and path when modifying previously created documents? Any suggestions or previous experience in regards to this would be most appreciated.

Answer : Modifying default office templates through Group Policy

Group Policy will not allow you to make these changes. A quick way to get this information into a document in Word is to insert a Filename field into the Footer of the Normal.dot and distribute it out to everyone to take care of new documents. If you use and other templates you should add it to those templates as well.

You could to is create a startup template for Word and one for Excel and place them in the startup directories (such as C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\STARTUP for Word 2003 or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART for Excel 2003) that contained an AutoOpen or AutoClose macro that would go to the last page of a document, see if a filename field existed, if not, if would inserted it.

There are third party program that do this for you. Do you use programs from Microsystems or Legal MacPac? Both of these vendors have programs that will automatically insert a trailer for you. I'm sure there are many other vendors that have also created programs of this sort.

                       
         
           
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             Sub AutoClose
 
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
    If ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial <> wdPaneNone Then
        ActiveWindow.Panes(2).Close
    End If
    If ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdNormalView Or ActiveWindow. _
        ActivePane.View.Type = wdOutlineView Then
        ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdPrintView
    End If
    ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekCurrentPageHeader
    If Selection.HeaderFooter.IsHeader = True Then
        ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekCurrentPageFooter
    Else
        ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekCurrentPageHeader
    End If
    NormalTemplate.AutoTextEntries("Filename and path").Insert Where:= _
        Selection.Range, RichText:=True
    ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekMainDocument
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
ActiveDocument.Save
End Sub

           
         

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