Templates
You use a Microsoft Word template file to manage styles and formatting for each document. The template file contains all of the paragraph styles that you can use in a generated document. For example, if you click the New and Blank Document buttons in Microsoft Word, a blank document appears in which you can enter text. This is a file and all of the formatting default values for it are determined by its template, which is a normal.dot file. The .dot file extension is for templates.
The Supplier Contract Management system uses a Microsoft Word template file to manage styles during the generation of the document. The system provides sample templates with the system's sample data to provide you an example of how you can define templates for use with documents.
Note:
Supplier Contract Management uses XML for all document content and for the Microsoft Word template. The file extension for the Microsoft Word template is .xml, but the system uses it in a similar manner as the Microsoft Word .dot file. You can use any Microsoft Word template, but you must first save the file using the Word XML Document type.
While Supplier Contract Management uses Microsoft Word templates they are not used in the traditional manner. The system uses the Microsoft Word template as a starting point primarily to obtain paragraph styles that control the appearance of document content as the system assembles the document. When you preview a clause, section, or document configurator or you generate a document, the system first checks the setup information and locates the actual template file on the file transfer protocol server.
Note:
In Supplier Contract Management, Microsoft Word templates are not intended to store content. You use them to define valid paragraph styles to apply when the system generates a document, or when you preview a clause, section, or document configurator. The Microsoft Word template can also contain optional table of contents and header and footer fields that you can apply when the system generates contract documents.
Since the use of Microsoft Word templates in Supplier Contract Management is most likely different from how you currently use templates, you should review the "Defining Default Settings for Document Formats and Options" section before creating and uploading Microsoft Word templates.