How to Add a Template Tab Into Word

By Darrin Koltow

To speed up workflow, create tabs for each template category.
i text and words image by Lario Tus from Fotolia.com

Microsoft Word has several features that you can customize, including tabs displaying user-created templates. Adding a tab for your Word document templates is a process involving both Windows Explorer and Word. No registry tweaking is necessary. The operation's result isn't visible if you apply the fast method of creating new documents in Word -- pressing "Control-N." It is visible once you click the File menu's "New" command.

Open Word and click the multicolored Microsoft Office button in the top-left corner of the application window. Click the "Word Options" button that appears.

Click the "Advanced" link in the left pane of the "Word Options" dialog box, then scroll down to the "General" heading.

Click the "File locations" button, then click the row "User templates" in the dialog box that appears.

Click the "Modify" button, then right-click on any blank space in the pane on the right. You won't be modifying the link to the folder that Word searches for custom templates, but creating a sub-folder within that folder.

Select the "New" item from the pop-up menu, then click "Folder." Type a name for the folder that's appropriate to the templates you want to store in it. For example, type "My custom templates," or "My business letterhead." Double-click the new folder to open it.

Jot down the full path name that appears in the address bar of the "Modify location" dialog box. Or, select and copy (by pressing "Control-C") this path name.

Press "Cancel" to close the dialog box, then press the "Close" or "Cancel" buttons on the remaining open-dialog boxes. Now that you've made a folder for storing your template, you'll put something in that folder. Word requires this before it can display a new tab to represent the folder's templates.

Open Windows Explorer, then navigate to one of your existing Word templates. If you don't know where one is, locate it by entering ".dot" in Explorer's search dialog box.

Copy at least one existing template from step 8 into the folder name you jotted down in step 6.

Click, in Word, the Office button's "New" item, then click the left pane's "My templates" link. The dialog box that appears will display a new tab whose name matches the name of the folder you created in step 5.

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