How to centralize settings/macros for Word? - How to use same customizations on multiple computers?

Hello,

My name is Charles Kenyon and I am an Independent Advisor in this forum . This forum is a user-to-user support forum. I am a fellow user with decades of experience using Microsoft Word. I have written extensively on using Word and have help articles on the Microsoft site.

This can be done, and I do it myself. However, it is not simple.

First, you need to be familiar with the ideas of global templates and workgroup templates. Here are links to parts of my article on templates dealing with those subjects.
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/templates....
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/templates....

You would want to store the macros and QAT modifications in global templates that you can share between the computers. My recommendation would be to put the templates in OneDrive folders which are mirrored/synced locally.

Ribbon modifications can also be in a Global template, but not the ones you do through the user interface. These require XML modification. This is much more powerful and flexible than those through the user interface but requires more work. See http://gregmaxey.com/word_tip_pages/customize_r....

In my opinion, it is important that all of these templates be stored locally. Otherwise you will lose the ability to use them if you are off line.

I hope this information helps.

I like to also provide this link about Ransomware even though it has nothing to do with your question:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/for...

Please let me know if you have any more questions or require further help.

You can ask for more help by replying to this post (Reply button below).

Stay well

Ah! Thank you. This should be quite handy.

If I'm understanding your articles on the global templates and startup folders correctly, I could build my preferred layout and customizations in a single word and then create that as a global template. Then, I could upload that template to a specified OneDrive folder, which I could then set as my Word startup folder for each of my PCs. Is that correct?

It is. However, I recommend, instead, that the OneDrive folder be synchronized locally to each computer and that local folder be designated on each as the StartUp folder.

Do I need to use a specific type of template file? Or will simply saving the file as a macro-enabled template save the customizations?

You need to save customizations in a template. To hold macros, it must be macro-enabled. If it holds XML ribbon customizations it likely will need to be macro-enabled. Keyboard shortcuts and QAT modifications can be saved in any template although if they call macros, they almost certainly should be in the template that holds the macros.