Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Saving a Preview with Your Template.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 26, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021
You already know that Word allows you to save your own document templates. These files are blueprints for documents you want to create in the future. When you select New from the File tab (Word 2010 and later versions) or Office button (Word 2007), you can use the resulting controls to see a list of templates available for creating new documents. In the left side of the dialog box (Word 2007) are the templates and at the right side is a preview of what that template looks like.
You may have already noticed that some of the templates you create don't have a preview available in the dialog box. If this is the case with your template, and you want to have a preview available, you can follow these steps:
At this point you can close the template file. Now when you display templates when creating a new document, your template should have a preview available.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (8659) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Saving a Preview with Your Template.
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2025-01-14 11:46:48
William Davis
This worked for me, thank you! (i can't believe I didn't see the checkbox the first time lol)
2020-04-15 05:47:37
AW
Nope. Doesn't work. Still shows just a general "grey lines of text"-thumbnail. :-(
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here:
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