Hyperlink to Word template - from Word document

[silentrain]

Hello everyone,

I'm kind of stuck in a rut, and hoping there's a solution Here's the situation:

I want to create an index of our company's set of controlled documents and custom templates. I'd like to create the index in MS Word or even MS Excel. Our existing templates use prompts and fields so that when a new document is created from the template, users are asked a few qn's and the appropriate fields filled out automatically.

Now, when a user double clicks on a template (*.dot) in Windows Explorer, or by using the File --> New menu, the default action is for a "New" document to be created from the template, not to actually open the template.

The problem is that if I hyperlink to a template file from my index, the template actually opens up, and a new document is not created. Then, the autoprompts do not work as expected. Also, the user is then forced to save the edited document as a template.

Does anybody know how I can link to templates from my index, and have them create a new document from the template when they click the link? Any help on how to do this in Word/Excel or even other ideas on a different way of creating the index would be very very much appreciated.

Thanks to all in advance.

 

[VBCOOP]

Hi Silentrain,

I had the same problem, raised a thread but ended up answering the question myself. Look at Microsoft's knowledgebase at

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;278627

basically the hyperlink needs to point at a shortcut (.lnk file) and this shortcut inturn points at the template. It seems a bit longwinded but it actually becomes useful for version control - you can change the shortcut only to look at a new version of a document rather than change your hyperlink.