Formatting Theses & Dissertations using Word 2010: Creating and Using Templates

Want to use a template to format your dissertation?

Now that you have all of these styles the way you want them, you can create a template to use for each chapter of your dissertation. The templates stores the information about your margins, styles, etc. so provides consistency across documents.

To create a template,

1. Open a blank Word document and adjust your styles (see page 5), margins (see page 8), and any automatic numbering features you want in your document.
2. On the File Ribbon, select Save as…, then select Word Template.  Save it somewhere that you can find easily.
3. To modify your template later, open Word first, then open the template file – if you double-click on it, it will create a new document based on the template as described below.

To create a document from your template or apply it to an existing document,

1. Double-click on the template file you created in the steps above.  This will open a new document based on that template.
2. If you already have a chapter written, you can insert that chapter into this new document to apply any style settings to it.  To do this…
   
   • On the Insert Ribbon, in the Text Group, click on the arrow next to the Object icon and select Text from File….
   • Navigate to the document you wish to insert and click Insert.