File Properties « Table of contents

Choose File>Properties, and on the Summary tab, type an entry for the Subject and Title. For the “Title”, specify the Title you want to appear on the front cover. Since we are creating a template, type something like “Go to File>Properties and fill in the Title”, to remind users to fill this in. Similarly, for the Subject, type “Go to File>Properties and fill in the Subject”.

In the Keywords field type the document's security classification: usually “Public” or “Restricted” or “Confidential” or whatever. This is a work-around to a potential problem: the obvious place to put this is the “Category” field, but this field is not available in all versions of Word. To avoid problems with conversion, use the Keywords or Comments field.

Then select the Custom tab on the Properties dialog, and where it says Name, select “Date Completed”; where it says Type, select “Date”; and where it says Value, type a date in your system date format: 5/4/2002 for the fourth of May in the USA, 4/5/2002 in the rest of the world. We will want to display it in different formats throughout the document: and you cannot do that unless Word knows that it's a date.

We're going to need these items on the front cover and in the headers and footers.

Printer

Word reads the driver for the current default printer and offers you the paper sizes the driver installs. It is very difficult to create a template without a printer installed. 

If you do not have a printer attached to your computer, install the driver for the printer your documents are going to end up on. 

If you do not know what that is, install a Lexmark Optra or Hewlett Packard LaserJet. These printers are large commercial lasers that have all the capabilities you need. If your ultimate output is to a Xerox DocuTech or other industrial output device, install an Apple LaserWriter: many professional output devices use a LaserWriter driver.

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