Adding Custom Document Templates to SharePoint Libraries

so I'm going to show you here is how to create a customized document template for a library so if we go into a SharePoint document library and we go to upload or add a new document we can select the new option here you'll see that I get Word Excel and the standard office documents along with the new folder option if I select word what I'll basically get is that it will open up in word online and you'll see here that the document is in fact blank so again not really adding any sort of template to it and again it's just grabbing it down there so we'll just get rid of that now the other way that we can do it is if we go up to the files option up the top here you'll see that we can select new document and a new document we've got this option here to create a new document in this library we select that and then what it's going to do it's going to prompt us to open up our word or Office document to create that so in this case I select yes it's going to download that template populated then we're going to open Word and we're going to be able to start editing that new document based on the template and then the idea is is to save it back into the SharePoint document library but as you see unfortunately the document is blank so it doesn't really provide much benefit at all especially if you're looking to customize your options so how do we go about doing that well the first thing we need to do is we need to go out and create the templates that we need in our office document so what I've done for example is created an Excel template and office temp Word template and also a PowerPoint template that I'm going to use I'm gonna basically inject those into this library now what I can do basically if I go to library and then go to library settings what I have an option here is if I go into advanced settings you'll see here that I under the document template the one that I opened on my desktop using Word 2016 in this case was basically this document now of course I can select to edit this document and again it'll give me this prompt I can then go in edit the document and then that will overwrite template dot docx there right so that is the document it's actually using now what we could do you would think is for example go in here and if we copy this from another location in SharePoint and then we change this document template let's say so let's make that one that we should we've picked in SharePoint somewhere else and that's then go okay you'll see what we get is we get a nasty error basically saying we can't do that and we can only basically create the template from something in the forms directory okay so again not something that it likes doing so again if we go back to our version library here the one we're working on and we go into library into our library settings you'll see under Advanced Settings that the only option I've got basically here is to edit the template so I could edit it save it up there but as you see the only option basically is I have one style of Office document typically here it's going to be basically just a word document which is not really what we want so what we really need to do is we'll need to use something called content type so to do that we select the cog in the top right we then go to site settings now what we're looking for under web designer gallery is this site content types so we select that you'll see these are all the default site content types that we already have but we're going to create a couple of new ones here so the first thing we'll do is we'll create a new one called my word template and you'll see over here that I can choose for I have to choose a parent so I'm gonna choose basically a document content type because it's going to be a document and in this case just leave it as document you'll see that I can put it into an existing content existing group but what I'm going to do is best practice here is to create a new group so that basically it'll be easier to find so we go okay and select that and that will now create a new content type called my word template and here it is here now what we need to do to actually get our file into there as we go advanced and you see that we can now if we wanted to we could now inject that document from our other SharePoint location if we wanted to and that's probably a good way to do it because then if you update the document in your SharePoint document library it will then flow through to the content part content type and then flow through to anywhere else that has been used but in this case I'm going to upload one something gonna do is go in here and upload my word one you'll see that I'm not gonna make it read-only and I'm going to leave the ability to update all content types they're inheriting from this okay and that will now complete that process and we now have a content type called my word template with a document a edited specific targeted template file for that content type so next what we'll do is we'll go in and repeat that process so what we'll do is we'll go in and create and create a new one here called my excel template basically repeat the process here so I'm gonna do is again pull it from the document content type so I'm going to make it a document but in this case because I've already created the group I'm just gonna pull this down and I'm gonna whoops put this new group into the one that I just created called CIA ops to keep it all together so go okay there and that will then create the excel one then go into advanced settings again and once again I'm going to upload a file so we can upload our excel template into there save that allow that to complete and we go in and do the last one which will be a PowerPoint template okay so we go in to type it in give it a name call up my powerpoint template once again just keep things simple it's going to be based on a document content type it's going to be a document and again we're going to add it to the group that we've already created so again we go okay so now we have our three new content type items again if I go back to content types here and then pull this option down to show the group's now you'll see that by putting it in their own unique group I can now group them together much easier so I've got my excel template my PowerPoint template and a word template so they're good to go I can now apply those to any library throughout my SharePoint site but what I want to do is put them into this library here I called version library no but I'll have to do is I need to go to library and then I need to go library settings and what I need to do is I need to enable the ability to add content types or manage content types for this library which is normally set to no so I need to enable that you'll notice that the temp default template URL here basically Gray's out which means that will no longer be valid so we can okay to update that now when we do that you'll see if I scroll down a bit we've now got a new section here called content types and what we've got is the default standard document type that comes with SharePoint and it's used for every document library but what we want to do now is add from the existing site content types so they're the ones that we've just added so again easy way to find all these because we've grouped them you'll see here so I just add that and make sure that I add all three across here so I'm now adding my custom content types to this library okay so that will now update if we scroll down again we should see that we have our custom templates and the existing one for the library the document library now obviously what you could do is you could go in and delete this one if you wanted the one that's the default but I would not generally recommend that you do that a better option is to leave it as is but to hide it so go into the change new button order here and then what I'm going to do is basically uncheck that and then what's going to happen is is that will mean that that will no longer be visible and no longer the default the my excel template at this stage will be the default cuz that is the next number we can obviously change that order also if we want so if we now go okay that will now complete that process if we go back to our version library and we go new you'll see that I now only have my excel template my powerpoint and my word template in here so for example if I select my word template it's going to prompt me to download the template open it in Word when it does open what you'll see is is no longer a blank document this is basically the word template that I chose the custom template that I created previously and uploaded so there it is now again what we can do is we can go into files and you'll see if I go under new document I've again got my excel template my powerpoint and my word template so again if I selected Excel for example this time again it prompts me in the same way I call it yes it will then download that excel template open it up and create a new document based on that template which I can then save back into my SharePoint sites and when this comes up you'll see this again is basically based on a template I've pre created now the other thing you may want to get rid of is this new folder options so the way that we do that is to go into library library settings and then go basically back into the Advanced Options once again so if I go into advanced settings again you'll see that there's an option if we scroll down a little here that is called making you folder command available so I select that no and then go down and save my options here and when I go back to the document library now you'll see that I select the new button and I don't have the new folder option so again this has been an example of how to use the content type filter within SharePoint to allow you to basically inject your own custom office templates into a document library so that when users create new documents they can base those on templates of your selection so again nice quick and easy to do requires a little bit of setting up but content types do have a lot of advantages so again one of the advantages would be so if we go back into site settings and we have a look at our content types so for example if I wanted to perhaps update this maybe this word template here ok so again you'll notice if I go to the Advanced Settings here ok so again if I wanted to change this to be a different version or a different style or maybe even a different sort of file ok I can easily do that and when I do that what's going to happen is is that it's going to then update all the dependent templates so for example if we go back in here and locate the PowerPoint one again go into advanced settings right and again what you'll see here is I can upload a file here so I'm gonna browse I could put in a new file here so I go strategy and you'll see that the option here to update sites and lists so this will allow me if I select yes which it is by default to update all the content types inheriting from this type so if I go OK save that so now I actually have a PowerPoint file in that content type if I go back to my version library here and I go new you'll see that again before it was a Word document now you'll see that it's actually a PowerPoint so that content type because it's used in multiple locations within SharePoint you update in one location and then you've got the option to update every other location in which it is used so it makes it nice and easy to start managing and controlling your documents so again hopefully these videos giving you a bit of an insight into how to use content types and also to create custom templates you can inject into a document library thank you very much for watching you

Channel: Robert Crane

Views: 14,929

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: sharepoint, office 365

Id: 9mJkcPvm34U

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2015