Moving Building Block Templates

Niels knows he can move his templates to just about any folder he desires. He wonders, though, if it is possible to move the building block templates (Building Blocks.dotx and Built In Building Blocks.dotx) to a different folder.

In Word, the building block templates are a "special case," meaning they are not stored in the same place as your other templates. Instead, they are stored in specific places where Word expects to find them. Here's the path to the building block templates in Word 2007:

C:\User\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Office\Document Building Blocks\1033

Word 2010 stores them in a different place:

C:\User\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Office\Document Building Blocks\1033\14

Word 2013 stores them in this location:

C:\User\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033\15

And, of course, the location for Word 2016 and later versions is different still:

C:\User\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033\16

Regardless of the version of Word you are using, you'll need to substitute your actual log-on username for username in the path.

There is no setting within Word or any particular Registry change that will allow you to specify a different location for these templates. Word expects them where it expects them, plain and simple.

Now, that being said, there are a couple of things you can try. The first is to not rely on the built-in building block templates. Take your building blocks and store them in a different template. That template can then be stored wherever you want (as Niels already noted) and its building blocks used. This approach is probably the least prone to potential problems.

Another approach is to use an old operating system hack that geeks have been using for decades. Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10 allow you to create what is generally known as a symbolic link that will redirect requests for a particular directory (such as where Word expects the building block templates to be) to a different directory. Exactly how you set up a symbolic link is beyond the scope of this tip, but you can find a very good explanation of the process at this page:

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13298) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365.