Templates: Guide to Using the Templates
Tool Summary
User guide
Guide to Using the IDG Templates A step-by-step guide to document creation and formatting.
Guide to using the IDG Templates (Word doc)
Training exercise
Learning Exercise An exercise you can do at your desk with the user guide as a reference.
Exercise Text A MS Word document contain text for use during the learning exercise.
Getting help
For further coaching or support, contact the documentation specialist in the IDG DSE Aid Effectiveness Team.
Key points from the user guide
- You can change the view in the new document box to see a list of the templates with the names in full
- Use styles, not manual formatting, for efficiency and consistency
- Click the AA button to get the useful panel of styles
- Avoid using using ‘normal’ style; it’s better to use one of the body text styles
- Use the list bullet and list number styles rather than the bullet point or numbering buttons
- Ctrl-Spacebar and Ctrl-Q to revert to the style if applying the style doesn’t do it
- Go into Table Properties to set table width to 100% (or to have a -3.5cm indent
- Check Format, Paragraph, Line and Page breaks, if text starts on the following page when you don’t want it to.
- Delete the plum italic text before finalising
- You can unlock protected documents by selecting Tools, Unprotect Document
Creating a new document
Most of the IDG and New Zealand Aid Programme templates can be accessed directly from within Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint.
In Microsoft Word:
Select File>New>Templates, On my computer… then selecting the IDG Templates tab.
In Excel:
1. If the Getting Started Task Pane displays, select Create a new presentation
2. Select File>New>Templates, On my computer… then selecting the IDG Templates tab.
In Powerpoint:
1. If the Getting Started Task Pane does not display, select View>Task Pane
2. Select Create a new presentation
3. Select Templates, On my computer… then select the IDG Templates tab.
Deleting a template
To avoid confusion, you can manually delete the old Powerpoint template (NZAID_Template 1.7.pot) from the General tab. And if you have made personal copies of any of the templates, we ask that you delete them and use the just released versions instead.
1. When the list of available templates displays, click the template
2. Right-mouse click and select Delete.
Standards used
Many of the IDG templates use the new MFAT standard font, Verdana 10, with line spacing of 1.2 (120%) and right-ragged paragraphs. These are the standards that have been approved for all MFAT’s Office 2010 templates such as letters, faxes and submissions. The templates also use a standard set of styles for formatting and we encourage you to use the styles panel or the styles drop-down box on Word’s formatting toolbar.
Guidance for authors
Any guidance to authors is displayed in violet italics. The guidance text should be deleted before a document is submitted for approval, published or distributed. We have tried to keep the guidance in the templates to a minimum. More information is often available in a related guideline.
Grey shaded form fields
Many of the templates use form fields which display as grey shaded areas to highlight where information needs to be filled in. Unless the form is locked, when you click on the form field, the text you type replaces the field and all the usual Microsoft Word tools are available to you, including spell check. Some forms (or parts of them) are locked so that check boxes and drop-down lists work. Since Microsoft Word does not spell check text in locked fields, we have tried to minimise their use.