I should probably know the answer to this, but I don't. We use a custom template for proposal documents, which, of course, make the rounds of authors. Our template is stored on a drive to which authors working in copies of the document have no access; template copies may also be on our DTP's hard drives. Typically, DTPs make any customizations to template for a specific job and send out doc (or docx) shells to the authors. I have recently noticed that some of these return with the Normal template attached, in place of the custom one. The custom styles are generally still all there (along with all the ones imported by authors using straight copy/paste from who know where).

I ran a quick test recently, sending such a custom template document by email to an employee with no access to the drive where the template is stored. I asked that she copy the document to her desktop, make a small edit and save, and then return the doc to me by email. When I got it back, the template was still attached, as I expected.

It's possible, perhaps, that an author might switch the template for some reason, but in my experience very few are that savvy. I hope none of our DTP's is doing this somehow.

Any leads?

Thanks.