Summary
Word 2013 changed (again, <sigh> ) the way templates are handled. Unfortunately the names used are not obvious. I've been puzzled about it for a while now and finally tripped over some answers. This wiki tries to summarize what I've found.
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There is also a 2016 version of this wiki, the folder labels are slightly different:
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Charles Kenyon at Addbalance found another variation, "Private" that I had not seen. Definitely do take a look at his article for a much more detailed description of how various versions of Word handle templates
Addbalance: File New in Microsoft Word - Access to User and Workgroup Templates
Details
In the Word 2013 "File menu > New command" backstage "pain" <sic, grin> I have read many questions and replies describing a "Featured" location and multiple other second locations such as "Personal" or "Shared"
or "Custom" or "Private". But no one was ever clear on the significance of those 3 names. I finally tripped over the answer, and will share it with you.
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For more information about the File > New dialog in earlier versions of Office, 97-2013, see, "File New in Microsoft Word - Access to User and Workgroup Templates": http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/fileNew.htm
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Office 2013 User Interface Reminder
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Just a reminder, in the Office 2013 user interface things that look like "text" or "labels" may also be "clickable" buttons / tabs. This is one case. When the backstage pane is displayed after clicking on File menu > New command you see the "New" documents
pane. It gives you templates options you can work with. Either by searching for them, or using "local" templates. Everyone will see a "label" called "FEATURED" and one of several other options. Featured, and these other options are actually
"buttons" you can click on. If you look VERY closely, you will see that the currently selected label will be displayed in a different color.
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"Featured" vs "Personal" vs "Shared" vs "Custom" vs "Private"
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"Featured"
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The "Featured" tab is only displayed when either one or both of "Workgroups" or "Personal Templates" locations is defined. If neither is defined you will see the default templates that MS Offers. It will look something like this:
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"Personal"
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For this next screen capture, I defined a location for my "personal" templates. These are templates you typically create for your own use. They are stored on your machine and you don't expect to share these templates with anyone else. You define the Personal
templates location in the File menu > Options
command > Save option > "Default personal Templates location:" . Enter (or paste) the location of your personal templates.
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Note: I used my "F:\" (data) drive, you will most likely use your C:\user\"personal profile location"
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Additional discussion about Personal Template vs User Template Locations
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Here is what the File menu >New command backstage pane looks like with the Personal template location defined. You still have the search field and suggestions, but now you also have the "Featured" and "Personal" buttons
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Note: I have highlighted the "Featured" button in yellow and the "Personal" button in green. You will NOT see these colors!
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This is what you will see in the backstage pane, without my highlighting:
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"Shared"
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You will see the "Shared" label/button when you only define a "Workgroup" location but no "Personal" location. The Workgroup location is defined in the "old" dialog. You get to this dialog by going to the
File menu > Options command > Advanced option (blue box #1) > scroll down to the
General section > Click on the "File locations
... " button (yellow highlight, blue box #2) to display the "File Locations" dialog box. In the File Locations dialog, double click on the "Workgroup Templates" entry (yellow highlight, blue box #3) to display the file find dialog. Navigate to the
Workgroup templates location, typically on a shared drive on your network that users only have read only access to.
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With only a Workgroup templates location defined, no "Personal" location defined you will see a shared button. When you click on the Shared button it will display all of the templates and/or folders defined in that location. Often,
if you have many corporate templates, they will be logically arranged in folders. In that case you would first see those folders.
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"Custom"
If you have defined BOTH a personal location and a workgroup location then the second button/label you see will be "Custom" . On that tab you will see the 2 folder names you have defined for those locations. Clicking on either one will then take you to those templates, and/or their subfolders.
It will look something like this:
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"Private"
If it says "Private" that means that you have not designated any folder as the Workgroup Templates folder and clicking on "Private" will give you a view of the templates in the folder designated under the File>Options>Save for your custom Templates Folder
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Outstanding Question
I am wondering what happens if your Workgroup location is defined on SharePoint (is this even possible?) rather than a shared network drive. Has anyone encountered this? Please leave a comment describing what you see
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Thanks to Shannon-STP we have a reply to my Outstanding Question. Yes, you can define a shared Workgroup location in SharePoint:
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<snip>
Just to answer your question: yes, you can store your Workgroup Templates in Sharepoint. This is what I have under File->New, with my Workgroup Templates stored on our Sharepoint Team Site. NB: of course users in the workgroup would need to have access
to the document library where the templates are stored, and they would need to be able to browse to that location to define it as the default Workgroup Templates file location - so would need to use the sync client for that library first.
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Related Reading
Charles Keynon (a frequent replier on this site) has a page of information related to this issue on his site. Take a look at this page:
File New in Microsoft Word - Access to User and Workgroup Templates
