Storing Building Block Entries with a Document

Rob has developed a document that contains a Word table that is used as a form for managing a project. Two cells in the table contain drop-down lists of alternatives using a Building Block entry. On Rob's machine, the drop-down lists work perfectly. When he transfers the document to a network drive so it is accessible to others in his office, the drop-down lists are no longer available. Rob would like this to work on other machines and is wondering what the trick is.

The trick is to understand that Building Block entries are not stored in documents; they are stored in templates. The default template in which they are stored is Building Blocks.Dotx. Since this template is available only on your machine, the Building Block entries required for the form are available only on your machine and not on others.

The solution, then, is to create a new template that will be used in conjunction with your form document. Store this template on the network drive and make sure that the form document has this template attached. Then, save the Building Block entries necessary to the form in the special template. To save a Building Block in the special template, follow these steps:

1. Press Alt+F3. Word displays the Create New Building Block dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Create New Building Block dialog box.

2. Fill in the various fields of the dialog box, as desired.
3. Depending on which version of Word you're using, use the Store In or Save In drop-down list to indicate you want the Building Block stored in your special template.
4. Click on OK to save the changes and exit the dialog box.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10340) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Storing AutoText Entries with a Document.