Hi,
I have a number of forms (macro-enabled Word-templates) that share a lot of code. In order to make maintaining the code easier, I have put the shared code into a .docm file, put that in a network folder.
I add a reference to the .docm in the network location to each Word-template.

I encounter two problems with this setup:
- When I create a new instance of a document based on the template, the .docm file is loaded into a separate window. That's distracting.
- When multiple users have documents open that contain the shared reference, they get messages "xxx.docm is locked for editing by [user]". That's distracting.

I would like to share the code, but avoid the problems above. If the forms were in Excel, I'd put the shared code in an add-in (XLAM), which doesn't show as a window, and quietly accepts that it's opening read-only. I haven't found the Word-equivalent of XLAMs.

How would you share code in this situation? How would you prevent the above problems?