Can anyone tell me if it is possible to add another category to the available templates of word??

I have a gpo that assigns workgroup templates by city.
Each city has a folder location that the gpo points to.
When a users selects file>new>my templates they see all of the templates assigned to their city. I have several users who need access to all city templates so i was hoping I could customize this area with new categories by city!
Is it possible to add a category above Office Online templates?

Can anyone direct me on how I can accomplish this??

Ideally If I cant customize the file tab I would like to add a new tab to the ribbon with a group for each city folder
TIA

• Moved by Cindy Meister MVPMVP Friday, January 27, 2012 8:29 AM IT, not Developer related (From:General Office Development)

Hi WGP

I'm going to move this to the TechNet support forums as this falls under the administrative configuration heading. You can't do anything like what you want using developer tools.

Before they can give you a concrete answer they will need to know which version of Office is involved...

Hi,

Yes, it is possible.

See the detail steps in: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178976.aspx

Tips:

When creating the registry entries, the [ProviderName] is the folder name.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\Spotlight\Providers\[ProviderName]

Under the [ProviderName] key, set the custom template path using the ServiceURL string value.

When finished, we can get:

Hi Max

Thanks alot bro...this is exactly what I was looking to do!!!!!

Works like a charm!

1 more question Max

Can I further break it down??

Can I have sub folders of each city for template categories?? ie: admin...engineers..designers and so on

Max

Can you tell me what might be the issue here??

When I click the folder only the 1st templates is shown!
Also.. my folder structure is as follows

City folder
     templates 1 folder
     templates 2 folder and so on

Can I set this up so that I only see the 5 city folders and then all the subfolders and then all the templates?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<o:featuredcontent lcid="1033" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office">
    <o:application id="WD">
        <o:featuredtemplates startdate="2011-03-01" enddate="2020-03-01">

            <!-- TEMPLATE 1 -->
            <o:featuredtemplate title="Base Building Combined Fee Letter (ME)" source="\\torvsrvfile\officetemplates$\TorontoOfficeTemplates\01-Proposal\Base Building Combined Fee Letter (ME).dot" >
            </o:featuredtemplate>

            <!-- TEMPLATE 2 -->
            <o:featuredtemplate title="Base Building Electrical Fee Letter (E)" source="\\torvsrvfile\officetemplates$\TorontoOfficeTemplates\01-Proposal\Base Building Electrical Fee Letter (E).dot" >
            </o:featuredtemplate>

            <!-- TEMPLATE 3 -->
            <o:featuredtemplate title="Base Building Mechanical Fee Letter (M)" source="\\torvsrvfile\officetemplates$\TorontoOfficetemplates\01-Proposal\Base Building Mechanical Fee Letter (M).dot" >
            </o:featuredtemplate>

            <!-- TEMPLATE 4 -->
            <o:featuredtemplate title="CAD As Built Proposal letter" source="\\torvsrvfile\officetemplates$\TorontoOfficeTemplates\01-Proposal\CAD As Built Proposal letter.dot" >
            </o:featuredtemplate>

        </o:featuredtemplates>
    </o:application>
</o:featuredcontent>

Hi,

For the issue you could only see the 1st template, please try to navigate to the following registry entry,

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\Spotlight\

delete the registry key Content, and restart your Word to check if it is work fine now.

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

Hi Max

Thanks for replying

I did the reg delete but got the same effect
It seems word isnt reading past the 1st template in the xml

Hi,

I tried to reproduce the issue by using your xml directly, it worked fine on my test environment.

Could you help to check again to delete the registry key? Make sure all Office applications is closed when doing so.

Hi Max

The only way I could get it to work was to leave the reference lines to the preview and gif!!

<o:media mediatype="gif" filename="1.gif" source="\\server1\public\templates\Contoso\media\1.gif" />
                <o:preview filename="1big.gif" source="\\server1\public\templates\Contoso\preview\1.gif" />

as soon as i added these lines back in my xml it worked fine

Any idea now how I can group all these folders by city?? I would like to have city folders only (Bur, Edm,Kel) and so on thene the numbered folders

Hi,

Did you have any success with creation of the subfolders?