How to create a custom template in Microsoft Word 2010 by adding custom fields to a regular document

The title of this post is a mouthful. I’m posting because I couldn’t find any good instructions for this on the web. All the directions I did find only told me how to save a document as a template. None told me how to create custom fields which is what I wanted. So here’s how:

1. Start a new word processing document.
2. Key your document, business letter, or whatever.
3. For each piece of information you want to be filled out, type it in brackets with descriptive text in between. Format the way you want the resulting document to be formatted. Some examples:

[Recipient]
[Company Name]
[Address Line 1]
[City, ST ZipCode]

Dear [Sir or Madam]:

4. Save a copy. Don’t include “template” in the name because that will only cause confusion.
5. Turn on the Developer Ribbon. (To do this, go to [File] > [Options]. Click on [Customize Ribbon]. The right-hand pane lists all the Ribbon tabs. Check the box beside [Developer Tab].)
6. One by one, select each of the bracketed text entries and format as a Plain Text Content Control which is found on the Developer Ribbon in the Controls Group. Don’t include spaces, punctuation, or anything else outside the brackets. This will convert the bracketed information into fields.
7. Save the open document as a Word Template. Use the word “Template” in the title for clarity. (Hint: Click [Save As] and change the [Save As Type] drop-down box to [Word Template (*.dotx)].)
8. Close the open document and open the template version of your file.
9. Test the document by filling out the fields. (Hint: Triple-clicking will select the entire field.)
10. If you need to make any changes, reload the original version, make any necessary changes, and resave over the template version.

You can still edit the document so it’s not a locked template, but it should work well. Your users may not even notice the difference.