"If I try to modify the work group templates location in Word 2013 to point towards my SharePoint site (or any HTTP address for that matter) it won't work."

I have a different test result as your discription above after performing the steps as below:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/set-a-file-template-for-a-document-or-form-library-HA102771909.aspx

Thanks.

Tony Chen
TechNet Community Support

• Edited by Tony Chen CHNMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Monday, December 30, 2013 1:47 PM

"If I try to modify the work group templates location in Word 2013 to point towards my SharePoint site (or any HTTP address for that matter) it won't work."

I have a different test result as your discription above after performing the steps as below:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/set-a-file-template-for-a-document-or-form-library-HA102771909.aspx

Thanks.

Tony Chen
TechNet Community Support

• Edited by Tony Chen CHNMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Monday, December 30, 2013 1:47 PM

Hi Tony, 

Thanks for your response but this is not what I was looking for. 

Those articles relate to setting a default template in a SharePoint document or form library.

I will try to be more concise.

What I want is:

(1) For users to be able to load MS Word 2013 on their laptops/desktops (connected to corporate Wireless/LAN)

(2) Once they have opened MS Word 2013, I want them to be able to choose a template from the welcome screen. (There are MS Word Defaults like 'Blank Document' or 'Cover Letter' etc)

I want to add a second tab which is called 'Personal' or 'Corporate'.

(3) MS Word 2013 allows you to create custom WORD templates and save them locally on your machine (either in the default location for templates, or a user-specified custom location (e.g. My Documents, Desktop etc).

(4) In advanced settings, there is an option to modify file locations. This is where you can point MS Word 2013 towards the folder (locally) that contains the personal templates that you have designed which you want to use.

(5) QUESTION: Is there a way to have lots of corporate WORD templates (perhaps one for Marketing, Sales, Procurement, Project etc) - Basically LOTS of different templates all stored in one location on SHAREPOINT, or in a SharePoint document library. THEN... once those templates (documents) are stored on SharePoint, IS THERE A WAY to go back into the advanced settings within MS WORD 2013 and modify the file location for templates so that it points towards the SharePoint document library? 

I want all the templates to open in MS Word 2013, not within a browser, and I don't want users to have to go to SharePoint to find a template, I want it to be integrated into their local MS Word 2013 so they can choose a corporate template the moment they load up MS Word 2013.

When I have tried to modify the custom file location for templates, I can only set it to an address locally on my machine, or a network address (mapped network drive). 

However, I do not want the templates to be stored on a shared network folder, I want them to be in a SharePoint Document Library. 

The issue I have found is that I cannot enter a SharePoint Library URL as my file location, nor can I enter any HTTP address. 

IS THERE A WAY AROUND THIS? 

We're very interested in a solution for this as well. Historically, we placed all of our workgroup templates on a network share which worked pretty well. However, you don't get the options that SharePoint offers for versioning, recycle bin, presorting by views using metadata, etc. So we tried to add all of our templates (including macro enabled) and InfoPath forms to a SharePoint document library. We figured at least people could then browse, search, and launch from a single location. However, we've had no end of trouble when user try to open these various files from SharePoint. The option to set up SharePoint document libraries with content types using different templates doesn't scale for hundreds of templates. It also doesn't provide a browseable, categorized list with additional metadata. 

Have you found any more clues as to the best practices surrounding this?

We'd like to serve our org templates for Office 2013 from SharePoint Online too. If anyone has found a workaround or procedure for this, please update this thread.

Thank you!

M. Adler

I use OneDrive Pro (formerly SkyDrive Pro).  OneDrive creates a folder that synchronizes to the SharePoint document library (including folders within it). 

All the OneDrive sync folders root (by default) at c:\users\%USERNAME%\SharePoint, with each synced document library a folder. 

To surface the templates, map the local filesystem location to the template location in Word. 

If you're clever you could probably drive this with a GPO, but you'd have to figure out how to push OneDrive onto the user's station. 

It works fine.  FYI I haven't tested read-only or worked out issues related to Word needing/wanting to write to Normal.dot.  An exercise for you, gentle reader? 

I use OneDrive Pro (formerly SkyDrive Pro).  OneDrive creates a folder that synchronizes to the SharePoint document library (including folders within it). 

All the OneDrive sync folders root (by default) at c:\users\%USERNAME%\SharePoint, with each synced document library a folder. 

To surface the templates, map the local filesystem location to the template location in Word. 

If you're clever you could probably drive this with a GPO, but you'd have to figure out how to push OneDrive onto the user's station. 

It works fine.  FYI I haven't tested read-only or worked out issues related to Word needing/wanting to write to Normal.dot.  An exercise for you, gentle reader?&n

I'll add my voice as well. I haven't seen a fix for this.

• - I was able to map it in Office 2003, but in 2010 it doesn't work.
• - It says that the workgroup template file location must be on my computer or on the network. Well, it IS on the network.
• - I even tried mapping the SharePoint folder to a drive, nothing.
• - Use explorer view and copy and paste the location in, nothing.

Why can't I get Microsoft programs to work with other Microsoft programs anymore? Seems like we're going backwards.

I want to do this too.

The official way to use document templates with SharePoint/Office, is to use content types with templates attached to them. You define these at the top site collection level, and filter down changes to individual document libraries from there.

This is not what you want to do, I understand that. You want to open the application first, then choose the template, but the SharePoint paradigm is to create a new document from a template, which opens the application for you - it's designed to be used the other way around.

An additional niggle for me is that although I'm happy to use content types to manage my templates, in SPO, if you use content types in your library, it disables the nice, handy, user-friendly 'New' button and forces you to go the long way around, choosing 'New' from the 'Files' ribbon. It used to work fine in the Document library, giving you a nice list of all your content types, but no longer. It looks like a kludge to me - maybe they'll fix it in a future release.

I'm going to look at the OneDrive for Business option as outlined by Todd - just have to work out how to push changes centrally to people's OneDrives....any ideas?

John Gregory

• Edited by Johnnyg999999 Friday, January 23, 2015 11:54 AM typo

I want to do this too.

The official way to use document templates with SharePoint/Office, is to use content types with templates attached to them. You define these at the top site collection level, and filter down changes to individual document libraries from there.

This is not what you want to do, I understand that. You want to open the application first, then choose the template, but the SharePoint paradigm is to create a new document from a template, which opens the application for you - it's designed to be used the other way around.

An additional niggle for me is that although I'm happy to use content types to manage my templates, in SPO, if you use content types in your library, it disables the nice, handy, user-friendly 'New' button and forces you to go the long way around, choosing 'New' from the 'Files' ribbon. It used to work fine in the Document library, giving you a nice list of all your content types, but no longer. It looks like a kludge to me - maybe they'll fix it in a future release.

I'm going to look at the OneDrive for Business option as outlined by Todd - just have to work out how to push changes centrally to people's OneDrives....any ideas?

John Gregory

• Edited by Johnnyg999999 Friday, January 23, 2015 11:54 AM typo

Hi John

We are having a similar issue with Office 365.  Have shared templates out via OneDrive for Business as you are looking at and it works fine.  Changes to the templates are automatically sent to all users.  We have even made all users read only on this document library so they can't overwrite the template by mistake.

However getting issues when they save a new document created from the template to their OneDrive that when they reopen the document it tries to reference back to the original template and crashes word.   I would be interested to see if you see the same.

Let us know how you get on

Dave Jackson

Hi!

Did You come up with a solution to this? I am in the same situation now and it would be great if You could give me a hint of how to solve it.

Best regards, Magnus

@David I haven't seen this behavior, but you could try mapping the templates to the local filesystem location of the sync'ed files.  Word might be picking up the web URL instead. 

What you want (I think) is to make sure Word grabs the templates from the local FS, where the sync to/from the SP folder lives.