I've created a template (.dotx) and saved it on our fileserver so that all employees can create documents based on this template. The template contains styles, headers, footer and some standard text. We have now created a couple of documents (.docx) based on this template but if I have a document that’s based on that template open and a colleague of mine opens a different document that is also based on the same template he gets the following message:
File In Use
xxxxxx.dotx is locked för editing by ‘Henrik’.
Do you want to:
o Open a Read Only copy
o Create a local copy and merge your changes later
o Receive notification when the original copy is available

Why does he get this message?
How do we get rid of it?



I’ve been searching on internet for a week now without finding any answer so I hope that someone here can shed some light on this for us.
Thank you in advance.
/ Henrik Wendt

Attached Images

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You should only get this message if the same document is being opened, or, perhaps, if the first person has the template itself open. It may depend on how your network is set up and where the template is stored. Have you tried opening both documents on the same machine, keeping the first open?

Yes, if both of us tried to open the template for editing it would be perfectly normal to get that message. But not when we try to open 2 separate documents that are based on the same template. I've not tried opening the 2 doc's on the same machine. I shall try that tomorrow when I'm back at the office.

/Wendt

I just came across the following, which may relate to your issue, even though you've created a custom template. This issue appears to be making changes to the template, however, not simply opening a document.

If Word is being used in a networked environment, the Normal.dot file could be common to all users on the network. If this is the case, then changes cannot be saved to Normal.dot when other people are accessing it. For instance, if User 1 and User 2are using Word, both are actually accessing the same Normal.dot file. When User 1 exits the program, his changes cannot be written to Normal.dot until User 2also exits the program.

This is just a hunch, but it seemed to work when I tested it on my machine.

Try to mark the template file as read-only.
1) Right-click on the file (in Windows explorer)
2) Choose Properties
3) Check the Read-Only box.
4) Close the properties box
5) Test it out.

The reason I think this will work is that a template file is opened as read/write once you open on of the files created from that template. My guess is that this is done so that if you modify one of the template features (style, header, footer, etc) then you can save the changes back to the template at the same time.

When you want to modify the template, which is probably fairly rare, just mark the template writable for the short period of time that it is actually begin modified.

Good luck
Paul

Paul,
That actually works.
Thank you so much for the tip.
It would have been nice to find out exactly how Microsoft intended this to work in a business environment when they designed it but that's something we probably will never find out.

/Henrik