Setting the path to templates

We'd like to create and distribute a set of company brand PP templates. It seems that the only place that PP will look for templates is the template folder set in Word's path settings. It has been suggested that we should use the workgroup template folder path as a workaround. This seems kind of kludgy. Even if we took that approach, however, users would still see the canned templates plus the company templates. We'd like to find a way where their list defaults to only the company templates but they could still manually browse to the canned ones.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

This option might also seem sort of "kludgy", but you can put the templates
in a network folder, create a shortcut to that folder on the desktop of each
person's computer. They double-click to open the folder, then double-click
the desired template. It will open a new presentation based on that
template. If they want to use the built-in ones, simply open PowerPoint,
click "File", "New", and use the regular ones.

You can still control the template(s) by having everyone using the same
ones, etc., but it doesn't require saving each to the desired folder on each
person's "C" drive. If you had to change a template, then everyone would
have to copy that new one to some obscure folder location (actually a hidden
folder).

Sound like a possibility?

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor - XP
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
Check out Word FAQs at: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/index.htm

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
We'd like to create and distribute a set of company brand PP templates. It
seems that the only place that PP will look for templates is the template
folder set in Word's path settings. It has been suggested that we should
use the workgroup template folder path as a workaround. This seems kind of
kludgy. Even if we took that approach, however, users would still see the
canned templates plus the company templates. We'd like to find a way where
their list defaults to only the company templates but they could still
manually browse to the canned ones.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

I don't think that will meet our needs because whatever strategy we use . . . we need to deploy it via ESD to about 30,000 employees scattered across the country. There wouldn't be any one network location they can all access and some are frequently disconnected. We need a local solution.

Thanks for your suggestion, though.

"Bill Foley" wrote:

This option might also seem sort of "kludgy", but you can put the templates
in a network folder, create a shortcut to that folder on the desktop of each
person's computer. They double-click to open the folder, then double-click
the desired template. It will open a new presentation based on that
template. If they want to use the built-in ones, simply open PowerPoint,
click "File", "New", and use the regular ones.

You can still control the template(s) by having everyone using the same
ones, etc., but it doesn't require saving each to the desired folder on each
person's "C" drive. If you had to change a template, then everyone would
have to copy that new one to some obscure folder location (actually a hidden
folder).

Sound like a possibility?

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor - XP
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
Check out Word FAQs at: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/index.htm

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
We'd like to create and distribute a set of company brand PP templates. It
seems that the only place that PP will look for templates is the template
folder set in Word's path settings. It has been suggested that we should
use the workgroup template folder path as a workaround. This seems kind of
kludgy. Even if we took that approach, however, users would still see the
canned templates plus the company templates. We'd like to find a way where
their list defaults to only the company templates but they could still
manually browse to the canned ones.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

One way would be to save your company template set as Blank.pot. That way when
PowerPoint is opened, the template will already be loaded.

Create a default "blank" presentation with your own defaults
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00245.htm
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
We'd like to create and distribute a set of company brand PP templates. It
seems that the only place that PP will look for templates is the template folder
set in Word's path settings. It has been suggested that we should use the
workgroup template folder path as a workaround. This seems kind of kludgy.
Even if we took that approach, however, users would still see the canned
templates plus the company templates. We'd like to find a way where their list
defaults to only the company templates but they could still manually browse to
the canned ones.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

That won't work for us because our plan is to distribute 6 templates and, depending on the customer's business area, they will choose the appropriate template.

Thanks for your suggestion.

"Sonia" wrote:

One way would be to save your company template set as Blank.pot. That way when
PowerPoint is opened, the template will already be loaded.

Create a default "blank" presentation with your own defaults
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00245.htm
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
We'd like to create and distribute a set of company brand PP templates. It
seems that the only place that PP will look for templates is the template folder
set in Word's path settings. It has been suggested that we should use the
workgroup template folder path as a workaround. This seems kind of kludgy.
Even if we took that approach, however, users would still see the canned
templates plus the company templates. We'd like to find a way where their list
defaults to only the company templates but they could still manually browse to
the canned ones.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

You could send them a zipped file with all the templates and have them unzip
the file onto the Desktop. This will create a folder on your Desktop with
the same templates. Of course, you would need to send it out again if a
template changes.

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
"Success, something you measure when you are through succeeding."

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
I don't think that will meet our needs because whatever strategy we use .
.. . we need to deploy it via ESD to about 30,000 employees scattered across
the country. There wouldn't be any one network location they can all access
and some are frequently disconnected. We need a local solution.

Thanks for your suggestion, though.

"Bill Foley" wrote:

This option might also seem sort of "kludgy", but you can put the
templates
in a network folder, create a shortcut to that folder on the desktop of
each
person's computer. They double-click to open the folder, then
double-click
the desired template. It will open a new presentation based on that
template. If they want to use the built-in ones, simply open
PowerPoint,
click "File", "New", and use the regular ones.

You can still control the template(s) by having everyone using the same
ones, etc., but it doesn't require saving each to the desired folder on
each
person's "C" drive. If you had to change a template, then everyone
would
have to copy that new one to some obscure folder location (actually a
hidden
folder).

Sound like a possibility?

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor - XP
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
Check out Word FAQs at: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/index.htm

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
We'd like to create and distribute a set of company brand PP
templates. It
seems that the only place that PP will look for templates is the
template
folder set in Word's path settings. It has been suggested that we
should
use the workgroup template folder path as a workaround. This seems kind
of
kludgy. Even if we took that approach, however, users would still see
the
canned templates plus the company templates. We'd like to find a way
where
their list defaults to only the company templates but they could still
manually browse to the canned ones.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

Unfortunately, about 85% of our population can't unzip or write to their
local drives, desktop, etc. We've locked things down pretty tightly via
group policy. ESD usually helps us get around that but I'm stumped on this
one.

Thanks for your suggestion.

"Bill Foley" wrote:

You could send them a zipped file with all the templates and have them unzip
the file onto the Desktop. This will create a folder on your Desktop with
the same templates. Of course, you would need to send it out again if a
template changes.

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
"Success, something you measure when you are through succeeding."

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
I don't think that will meet our needs because whatever strategy we use .
.. . we need to deploy it via ESD to about 30,000 employees scattered across
the country. There wouldn't be any one network location they can all access
and some are frequently disconnected. We need a local solution.

Thanks for your suggestion, though.

"Bill Foley" wrote:

This option might also seem sort of "kludgy", but you can put the
templates
in a network folder, create a shortcut to that folder on the desktop of
each
person's computer. They double-click to open the folder, then
double-click
the desired template. It will open a new presentation based on that
template. If they want to use the built-in ones, simply open
PowerPoint,
click "File", "New", and use the regular ones.

You can still control the template(s) by having everyone using the same
ones, etc., but it doesn't require saving each to the desired folder on
each
person's "C" drive. If you had to change a template, then everyone
would
have to copy that new one to some obscure folder location (actually a
hidden
folder).

Sound like a possibility?

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor - XP
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
Check out Word FAQs at: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/index.htm

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
We'd like to create and distribute a set of company brand PP
templates. It
seems that the only place that PP will look for templates is the
template
folder set in Word's path settings. It has been suggested that we
should
use the workgroup template folder path as a workaround. This seems kind
of
kludgy. Even if we took that approach, however, users would still see
the
canned templates plus the company templates. We'd like to find a way
where
their list defaults to only the company templates but they could still
manually browse to the canned ones.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

If 85% of your 30,000 employees can't write to their hard drives, you can
save a lot of money by selling those computers and getting them pen and
paper because the computers are useless! Think about what you just said!

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
"Success, something you measure when you are through succeeding."

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately, about 85% of our population can't unzip or write to their
local drives, desktop, etc. We've locked things down pretty tightly via
group policy. ESD usually helps us get around that but I'm stumped on
this
one.

Thanks for your suggestion.

"Bill Foley" wrote:

You could send them a zipped file with all the templates and have them
unzip
the file onto the Desktop. This will create a folder on your Desktop
with
the same templates. Of course, you would need to send it out again if a
template changes.

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
"Success, something you measure when you are through succeeding."

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
I don't think that will meet our needs because whatever strategy we
use .
.. . we need to deploy it via ESD to about 30,000 employees scattered
across
the country. There wouldn't be any one network location they can all
access
and some are frequently disconnected. We need a local solution.

Thanks for your suggestion, though.

"Bill Foley" wrote:

This option might also seem sort of "kludgy", but you can put the
templates
in a network folder, create a shortcut to that folder on the desktop
of
each
person's computer. They double-click to open the folder, then
double-click
the desired template. It will open a new presentation based on that
template. If they want to use the built-in ones, simply open
PowerPoint,
click "File", "New", and use the regular ones.

You can still control the template(s) by having everyone using the
same
ones, etc., but it doesn't require saving each to the desired folder
on
each
person's "C" drive. If you had to change a template, then everyone
would
have to copy that new one to some obscure folder location (actually
a
hidden
folder).

Sound like a possibility?

--
Bill Foley, Microsoft MVP (PowerPoint)
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor - XP
www.pttinc.com
Check out PPT FAQs at: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/
Check out Word FAQs at: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/index.htm

"Lori50" wrote in message
...
We'd like to create and distribute a set of company brand PP
templates. It
seems that the only place that PP will look for templates is the
template
folder set in Word's path settings. It has been suggested that we
should
use the workgroup template folder path as a workaround. This seems
kind
of
kludgy. Even if we took that approach, however, users would still
see
the
canned templates plus the company templates. We'd like to find a
way
where
their list defaults to only the company templates but they could
still
manually browse to the canned ones.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.