Crabby Office Lady

Let's explore why it's ethically correct and creatively necessary to learn how to customize those templates you've been downloading from the Microsoft Office Online Templates Web site and passing off as your own.

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You have many questions about what templates are, when to use them, and how to make them unique to your project.

Debunking the myths

First let's take a gander at some of the myths surrounding templates.

Myth #1: Templates encourage sloth

This one could be true if you just take a template exactly as it is and call it yours. I mean, how easy is that?

Here in the mailroom, we actually get e-mail messages from people requesting templates for movie scripts. Can I assume that the screenplay we post, that one of our writers spent five years of her life writing, will be taken by some snip of a lad and passed off as his own? Will there be hundreds of the same scripts with the same characters and same plotlines being pitched to studio execs and then made into movies that are all basically the same?

(Wait. Been to the movies lately? Isn't that already happening?)

Rise above that! Do your own work! Show a little gumption and creativity! The key word here is customize, as in start with our template but then make it your own. Simmer down; we'll get to that later.

Myth #2: You can't tell anyone

Are you secretly downloading templates? Do you believe that downloading templates is something shameful? When someone compliments you on your document, do you feel a moral obligation to announce to the world that you created it from a template?

If you answered "yes" to any one of these questions, you need to snap out of it! What do you think we create these templates for, our health? It's OK to use templates and it's OK to pass the work off as your own providing you customize them. Repeat after me:

• I'm good enough.
• I'm smart enough.
• I'm creative enough.
• I just need a little help with customization.

Myth #3: Smart people don't need templates

Think of a template as an idea on which to expound. Webster has this to say about it:

Template: Something that establishes or serves as a pattern.

In other words, make someone else's good idea even better.

Famous innovators who customized templates

Innovator	Claim to fame	Template used
Starbucks' Howard Schultz	A nonfat, half-decaf-half-regular extra hot white chocolate caramel latte in every cup holder	Italian espresso
Henry Ford	An automobile in every driveway	The wheel and the combustion engine
Phil Donahue	An afternoon TV talk show on every channel	Public conversation and debate
Mary Phelps Jacob	A bra supporting every bosom	A corset stiffened with whalebone (ouch)

So you see, everyone's got to start somewhere.

Customization puts you in the artist's shoes

Now that I've set the record straight about the old wives' tales surrounding templates, and you're all feeling better about yourselves, let's talk about practical ways you can make templates work for you. Whether you're working in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint®, or Microsoft Access, customizing templates can become second nature to you after you learn a few tricks.

But first, let me take you by the hand and gently clue you in to something: you can find out all by yourself how to customize tables, fonts, and everything else I'm about to tell you. Just look up how to do it in Help. (That's right, Help. As in, "Help yourself.")

To access Help

• Press F1 on your keyboard. Help will pop up and make your life a whole lot easier. Not to mention mine.

Below are some of the most common ways you might want to make a template your own. Don't be such a scaredy-cat; fear never got anyone anywhere.

Customizing templates

You template freeloaders — I mean, downloaders — seem to get a little hung up on tables. "There aren't enough rows," you moan. "There are too many columns," you complain. Good grief, get a handle on yourself! Here are some quick and easy ideas to make changes to a table (and no, these are not industry insider secrets).

Type this in Help	To see how to do this
Add a row, column, or cell	Make a two-column, two-row table: [Row 1, Column 1] [Row 1, Column 2] [Row 2, Column 1] [Row 2, Column 2] ...into a three-column, two-row table: [Row 1, Column 1] [Row 1, Column 2] [Row 1, Column 3] [Row 2, Column 1] [Row 2, Column 3] [Row 2, Column 3]
Add color to a table
Resize a table
Set border specifications
Merge adjacent cells (creating one large cell)
Split a cell (creating two cells divided into rows or columns)

Customizing the font

So you don't like the choices the template creator made? You see yourself as much more jazzy, colorful, and sexy? Plain black courier text just doesn't speak to you? Don't just sit there with your head in your hands; change the font!

Some ideas:

 Change the font style, size, color, or effect.

 Use a different font family.

 Get crazy with WordArt. Express your deepest desires. (Uh, keep your audience in mind.)

Customizing numbers, dates, and fields

When our Online Templates gurus sit down to create a template, they pretty much follow their own desires and tastes and do what they want with layout, design, and so on. While this is all well and good for their personal journeys to the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (see graphic below), this doesn't help you. You feel hemmed in, restricted, forced to adopt a way of thinking that you just don't subscribe to. (You think I don't understand restriction? Do you KNOW what kind of edits these columns go through before the censors let them loose?)

Well, step up to that pyramid, change a template that gets your goat, and make your own way toward self-actualization:

• Numbered lists  You don't like the type of numbers the template uses? Prefer Roman numerals? Try this:
  1. Right-click the numbered list, and click Bullets and Numbering (in Office 2003) or List Properties (in Office XP and 2000) on the shortcut menu.
  2. In the Bullets and Numbering or List Properties dialog box, choose the type of numbering you prefer and even format the list differently.
• Fields  Fields are used as placeholders for information that might change in a document. Say that the Word template you downloaded has a Date field inserted into it (which means that the date on the document is updated every time you open it). If you don't like the date format the template chose, you can change it.
  
  For example, if the date is displayed in the template as 1/7/2002, you can change it to Monday, January 7, 2002. Here's how:
• Right-click the field, and then click Edit Field on the shortcut menu.
  
  

   Note   You can do the same procedure for any kind of field, such as Author, FileName, or GreetingLine, and you can always tell where a field code is; it's highlighted in gray when you click it.

• Printing and page layout  Changing the way your document or spreadsheet looks on the page is easy enough. You can change any number of things, from the way the margins are set up to whether a multi-page template prints double-sided. Here are some tips:
  • To access the printing dialog box, on the File menu, click Print.
    
    

     Note   Each program offers its own printing options depending on the configuration, features, and limitations of your printer.

  • To change the orientation (horizontal or vertical) of your template, do the following:
    1. On the File menu, click Page Setup.
    2. Under Orientation, click Portrait or Landscape.
• To change the margins of a template, do the following:
  • In Excel, click Page Setup on the File menu, click the Margins tab, and then adjust the sizes in the appropriate boxes.
  • In Word, on the File menu, click Page Setup, and under Margins, adjust the sizes.
  • In PowerPoint, on the File menu, click Page Setup, and enter the Width and Height measurements you'd like for the slides.

Now see — that wasn't so bad, was it? And isn't your conscience starting to relax? Good. Because my nurturing impulse has run its course.

Take it from here

B.B. King might not be the King of the Blues today if not for Robert Johnson and the music he played after Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. But that's another story and you get my point.

I don't expect you to offer your soul for a template. Just download to your heart's content and then make them your own. And stop asking us for screenplays.

One more thing: you're obviously already aware of where you can get the templates I'm speaking of, but just in case you've stumbled upon this column by accident (like Alice in the rabbit hole, where I get to be the Red Queen), Templates on Microsoft Office Online is the place to get them.

"Guilt is a rope that wears thin." — Ayn Rand

About the author

Annik Stahl, the Crabby Office Lady columnist, takes all of your complaints, compliments, and knee-jerk reactions to heart. Therefore, she graciously asks that you let her know whether this column was useful to you — or not — by entering your feedback using the Was this information helpful? tool below. And remember: If you don't vote, you can't complain.

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