I'm not the original poster.

Let me expand my example: a simple Word document with text that remains mostly the same from one use to another would be the company's blood drive announcement. The location, times, and contact person are always the same. Only the date changes. I normally open the docx file and change the date and save it with a new file name, maybe blood-driveSep.docx instead of blood-driveJul.docx. Is this not "opening documents, modifying them and saving them as something else"?

If you say it's dangerous, I won't do it, but I was hoping that someone might say why it's bad. The document is based on the Normal template, and the content is eventually copied into InDesign, so I don't follow why it needs a template of its own. To avoid disaster, I will try to remember to Save As first and then change the date. That's OK, isn't it?