Launching Word Templates from Web Site

[Tim Tripp]

Earl Young wrote:
> 
>      There is a very low probability that you can get a Word template to
>      launch within a browser without making lots of changes to both
>      programs.  I have not reviewed all the engineering on the topic, but
>      Microsoft and a number of others have written HTML and Web-related
>      filters for Word, and I do not imagine they would have bothered if it
>      could be done with existing point-and-click.  What are you trying to
>      accomplish?  What features of the documents do you wish to use?
> 

Earl,

Thanks for the reply.  Just to clarify, I don't want the template (.dot)
to launch within the browser window, but just want to know whether it
can successfully launch Word and open up within Word, just as a standard
document (.doc) can.

I'm honestly not sure if this is even an appropriate use of web
technology.  If everyone who needs the forms has network access to Word,
and gets a listing of all the available templates when they select
"File", "New", does also making them available on our Intranet really
provide any benefit?  Launching the forms off a web page does give the
ability to provide summaries of what the form is about, and perhaps some
additional instruction, so I haven't dismissed it totally.  As well, all
of our policy and process type documents are on our Intranet, and since
many of them call up forms, I like the idea of having one seamless,
integrated, hyperlinked online system.

I also wanted to thank Frank Cervone and Elizabeth Felt for also getting
back to me, but again think I should clarify the question.  I'm not
referring to regular Word documents.  Our intranet server and the
network installation of Netscape are already configured to recognize and
handle documents created in any of our standard office automation
software packages.  What I'm wondering about are Word templates (*.dot)
as opposed to Word files (*.doc).  The company has made a decision to
convert all (well, most) forms to Word template formats, previously the
company standard was WordPerfect.  My intranet server techie-type guy is
not available for me to test this out, so I'm just wondering how/whether
I should proceed with making these forms available.  It would be nice if
it was just a matter of the standard server/browser file type
recognition settings, but given the peculiar nature of template files,
I'm not so sure.

Thanks again,

Tim

> ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
> Subject: Launching Word Templates from Web Site
> Author:  ttripp at inforamp.net at INTERNET
> Date:    5/12/97 9:42 PM
> 
> Just curious if anyone knows if this can be done.  My intranet server
> adminstrator is away, and since the server is in Montreal I can't test
> this myself.
> 
> I'm wondering if so-called "smart" forms created as word template files
> (*.dot) can be placed on a web server and launched properly by a local
> copy of Word.  Will simply making the appropriate file association on
> the server (and in the browser) allow this to happen as it does with
> regular documents?  Has anyone done this successfully?


-- 
Tim Tripp, Library Supervisor                           
Spar Space Systems (Brampton)                
Spar Aerospace Ltd.                          
9445 Airport Road
Brampton, Ontario, Canada
L6S 4J3
http://www.spar.ca/
Tel:(905) 790-2800 ext. 4108
Fax:(905) 790-4423 
Work: ttripp at spar.ca 
Home: ttripp at inforamp.net