A good way to organize templates so that you can easily locate them is to set up custom tabs in the New dialog box (File menu).

Create a custom tab in the New dialog box

1. In Microsoft Windows® Explorer, open the Templates folder. If you use the user profiles feature in Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0, Windows 98, or Windows 95, the Templates folder is located by default in Windows_folder\profiles\username\application Data\Microsoft. If you are not using the user profiles feature, the Templates folder is located by default in Windows_folder\ApplicationData\Microsoft.
2. On the File menu, click New, and then click Folder to create a subfolder in the Templates folder.
3. Type a name for the subfolder. The name you assign to the subfolder appears as a tab in the New dialog box.
4. Move the templates you want into the subfolder you just created.

Note   The type of template extension will determine where the template actually appears (in which program's New dialog box). In other words, if you create a Word template (a .dot extension), it will appear in your new subfolder in the New dialog box in Word. A tab for the subfolder you created only appears in the New dialog box in your Office program if a template for that program is located in the subfolder. For example, if the folder you created does not contain a Word template, the tab for that folder does not appear in the New dialog box in Word.

For example, say that you've just created some new templates named Weekly Report (a Word template) and Monthly Report (an Excel template). Now you want to create a custom tab named Special Reports in the New dialog box.

In Windows Explorer, create a subfolder named Special Reports in the Templates folder. Then move the Weekly Report and Monthly Report templates to the Special Reports subfolder. Now, when you click New on the File menu in Excel, the Special Reports folder appears as a tab in the New dialog box and the Monthly Report template is displayed on the tab. Likewise, the Weekly Report template is displayed on the Special Reports tab when you click New on the File menu in Word.

See Also

For more information about creating templates, read Creating a Template in Office. You can also type create template in the Office Assistant or on the Answer Wizard tab in the Help window for the Office program you are using, and then click Search.