template management - folder order (office 2007 and 2010)

[ladybugblue]

Greetings,

Our organization's workgroup templates are stored in a network Templates folder that is mapped at install in all Office applications. I recently renamed one of the subfolders in the Templates folder, and for some reason now the tabs do not show up in alphabetical order in any of the Office applications when I go to File, New, My Templates.

Just for the fun of it, I cut them, moved them elsewhere, and then moved them back... now they're in a DIFFERENT order, but still not alphabetical.

Any brilliant ideas?

Don't know what I did, but sure wish I hadn't!
Angela

[HansV]

When I try this, I get the subfolders of the User Templates subfolders in alphabetic order, then the Network Templates subfolders in alphabetic order.
It might have been different in earlier versions of Office, but my vague memory that user and network templates subfolders were mixed together may well be incorrect.

[ladybugblue]

I believe this was the same for me in the past. I've experimented with this further, and found that somehow the folders are sorting according to the order in which they were added/created/modified, rather than by alphanumeric. So my rough workaround was to Cut all of the folders, and then bring them all back in, one by one, in alpha numeric order. Any ideas on what setting would have changed for that folder? It's not set to 'remember each folder's view settings' or anything like that. Is it a setting in MS Office somewhere? Or in Windows?

[HansV]

I don't know - I have all my folders set to sort descending on last modified date, but the tabs in the My Templates dialog are displayed in alphabetic order, with the user templates before the network templates. I have no idea how to change the order in this dialog. Sorry!

[StuartR]

I wonder if the view is the same as the remembered view for the folder in Windows explorer? Can you navigate to the folder using explorer, switch to detailed view and make sure that files are sorted in alphabetical order.

[ladybugblue]

I tried that and it doesn't seem to make a difference - so weird! It's obviously a setting that somewhere, somehow can be tweaked - the mystery is how!

[StuartR]

In the dialog box where you see the templates listed you can switch to details view and then click on any column header to change the sort order.

[ladybugblue]

Very cool - I never knew you could do that!

Our problem, however, is a change that affects all of our PCs, and it's with the template tab order, not the files themselves. In your example above, it would be as though suddenly "Savedfiles" was listed before "Personal Templates" on every computer in your organization - for no known reason!

[StuartR]

Sorry, I have no more ideas on this one.

[Argus]

... and it's with the template tab order, not the files themselves.

So, the question isn't about folder and file order, as mentioned in the subject, but rather tabs within a dialogue box? Or? (I don't have access to 2010 at the moment.)

Otherwise there is an old trick, when files and folders are sorted in the wrong order in Open and Save dialogue boxes etc.; say in Notepad, the Run box or any similar box in the OS or in applications such as Word or Excel.

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder.
2. Sort the files by name, or the way you want. If the folder view is, for example, Tiles, I usually do a quick switch to Details and click on the headings to change the sort order, I can then change back to Tiles if I want.
3. Close Windows Explorer with the close button, top right while holding the Ctrl-key.

There's an old MSKB article. (Even if it talks about Windows 98 it seems to work quite well in later versions; I've used this technique with Windows XP and, for example, Office 2003; I've yet to stumble on this in later versions.)

Items in "Open" and "Save As" Dialog Boxes Sorted Incorrectly

[HansV]

Argus, the tabs in the New dialog correspond to subfolders of the user templates and network templates folders. The names of the tabs (except for 'Personal Templates') are the names of the subfolders. Ladybugblue's problem is that the sort order of the tabs doesn't correspond to the sort order of the subfolders.

[Argus]

Ach so.

[dasadler]

where is the my templates folder located for office?

[stuck]

where is the my templates folder located for office?

Do either of these links answer your question?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924460
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826867

Ken

[dasadler]

Thanks Ken. I was aware of these; although this is good reference info. Maybe I understood the discussion too literally... I thought there was a specific 'MY TEMPLATES' folder and that was new to me as I was only familiar with User Templates and Workgroup Templates. I thought MY TEMPLATES might be something new with Office 2010 which I do not yet have.

[stuck]

In Office 2007, when you click the Big Office Button and select 'New' one of the options in the left hand panel is called 'My Templates'. The choices of templates on offer in there are physically located in the folders set by your User templates path , your Workgroup templates path and the main installation templates folder (default for XP is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates).

I've not got Office 2010 but I don't think it's any different in this respect.

Ken

[HansV]

It's basically the same in Office 2010.

[kdock]

Might this be the work of a setting change on your network? Since it's affecting everyone, and everyone connects to the network...?