Template switch cause?

[Ulodesk]

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.

[macropod]

Hi Ulodesk,

Maybe what's happening is that your users are using Copy/Paste to copy material from your template into another document they've created based on the Normal template. That would explain your custom Styles apparing in a document that now appears to be based on the Normal template. Or, they might have deliberately attached to Normal template - not at all hard to do. Whichever way it's being done, if someone copies & pastes material formatted in a different custom Style into a given document, that document may acquire the Style also - unless the pasted material is pasted as unformatted text or the user's Word setup is configured to 'Match destination formatting' (see under Word options|Advanced > Cut, Copy & Paste).

[Ulodesk]

Yes; I suspect that the first option may be the most likely, although, come to think of it, I didn't test sending a document to someone without template access, and seeing what happens if he or she performs a "save as," rather than just a save; might that lead Word to substitute the Normal template? I'll have to try it.

Best,
Philip

[Ulodesk]

Well, I did try it and the template returned with the doc, so I suspect you're probably right with the author-change hypothesis. Time for a little staff procedures refresher.