Word gurus often tell people to look in their Word Startup folder or to put a template in their Word Startup folder. That is a folder to hold Add-In (global) templates. These templates will hold resources for other documents such as macros or AutoText but will not be used directly as the basis for new documents.

The default location of your startup folder will depend on your operating system and your version of Word. Here are a few likely candidates

	C:\Windows\Profiles\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup
	C:\Users\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup
	C:\Users\user name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\Startup

You can locate yours through Windows Find (Search) or by going through Word to examine your File Location Options.

Windows Find (Search)

Shown above is a Windows Vista Explorer search dialog using Advanced Search. Note that there are a number of different folders all labeled "Startup." Your system will likely have two. If only two, one will be in the Office folder, the other will be your Word Startup folder. Templates placed in the Office STARTUP folder will act as Add-Ins for Word and possibly for other Office Applications. Those in the Word Startup folder will apply only to Word.

You can identify the Word startup folder using Word's File Location Options

These Options are reached in slightly different ways depending on your version of Word.

Word 97-2003   --   Word 2007   --   Word 2010

Word 97-2003

Tools > Options > File Locations (tab)

Word 2007

Office (Pizza) Button > Word Options (button) > Advanced > File Locations (button)

Word 2010

File (tab) > Options > Advanced > File Locations (button)

Once you've clicked on the Modify button you can find the actual location.

Once you have the Modify dialog open, go up one level to see the folder that holds the Startup folder. Right-click on the Startup folder to get its properties. One of those properties is the location. This will probably be a longer line than you can read in the properties box. You can select it with your mouse, though, and copy it.

With that address copied into the Clipboard, close and cancel your way out of the Word Options. Do not modify this location without a good reason.

Paste the address into the address box in a Windows Explorer window to get to the Startup folder.

(This method explained to me by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP.)

See also: Location of Templates in Word 2003 and Word 2007