For seven weeks of MO-110 prep, you learned to build documents from scratch. This week, you start learning to build infrastructure — templates that save you the same setup work every time, version recovery that protects you when things go wrong, customization that makes Word fit your hand instead of the other way around. These are the skills that distinguish "uses Word" from "uses Word like a professional."

The shift in mindset matters: an Associate-level user opens a blank document and re-applies their letterhead, fonts, styles, and margins each time. An Expert-level user opens a template they configured once, and inherits all of it automatically. The Expert spends 30 minutes building a template; saves 5 minutes per document forever after. After a year of professional use, the template has paid for itself thousands of times over.

The same applies to the other skills this week. Comparing two versions of a contract to see what a colleague changed is a daily task in legal, finance, and policy work. Recovering an older version when something gets accidentally deleted is a weekly task for everyone who's been using Word for any length of time. Adding the right buttons to the Quick Access Toolbar saves seconds per command — over a 50-minute MO-111 exam, that adds up to minutes you don't lose.

A template is a Word file with the extension .dotx (or .dotm if it contains macros). When you open a template, Word doesn't open the template itself — it opens a new document based on the template, with all the template's styles, formatting, and content already applied. The original template stays unchanged on disk, ready to spawn the next document.

Every document you've created in this course has actually been based on a template — the one called Normal. The Normal template is Word's invisible default; it defines what a "blank document" looks like, including the default font (Calibri 11pt typically), the default styles (Heading 1, Body Text, etc.), and the default page setup. Modifying Normal changes every new document you create from then on.

Modify an Existing Template

The most-tested template task on MO-111: open an existing template, change something, save it back so future documents inherit the change.

To know whether you're editing the template or a document based on it, check the title bar. Editing the template directly shows the template's filename (e.g., letterhead.dotx). Creating a new document from the template shows Document1 or similar.

Once the template is open, modify what you need: change styles, add letterhead, update the header, etc. Then save with Ctrl+S — this saves changes back to the template.

.dotx vs .docx — The Critical Difference

The two file extensions look almost identical. The difference is consequential:

• .docx — a Word document. Opens the document itself for editing.
• .dotx — a Word template. Opens a NEW document based on the template, leaving the template unchanged.

The behavior matters because of intent. A document is meant to be edited and saved. A template is meant to be the source of many documents — modifying it accidentally would corrupt every new document going forward. The .dotx extension protects the template by automatically generating a new document instead of opening the template directly.

Change the Normal Template Default Font

The Normal template controls the default font for every new document. Changing it: open Word, set up a font you want as default, then make it the Normal default.

The setting persists. Every new document opens with your chosen font from now on.

Document versions are previous saved states of your file that Word retains automatically. When AutoSave is on (and the file is saved to OneDrive or SharePoint), Word saves a snapshot every few minutes and keeps a history. You can browse those snapshots, see the document as it looked at any past point, and restore an older version if needed.

Why this matters: every document gets accidentally damaged sometimes. You delete a section you needed, you replace text you shouldn't have, you save over a version that had something important. Version history is the safety net — provided AutoSave is on and you saved to a cloud location.

Access Version History

The Version History pane opens on the right. It shows a timeline of saved versions — each entry shows the date, time, and (sometimes) which user made changes.

Recover a Previous Version

Click any version in the list. Word opens that historical version in a new window labeled "Read-Only." Two options from there:

• Restore — replaces the current document with this older version. Use when you're certain you want to abandon recent changes.
• Save a Copy — saves the older version as a separate file, leaving the current one intact. Use when you want to compare or extract specific content without losing recent changes.

Save a Copy is usually the safer choice — it preserves both versions for comparison. Restore is a one-way operation; once you've restored, the more-recent version is overwritten.

Two related but distinct features that both live on the Review tab. They look similar but solve different problems.

Compare — "Show me what changed"

Compare takes two versions of a document and produces a third document showing the differences as tracked changes. Use when one reviewer made edits to a copy and you want to see exactly what they changed.

Word produces a new document with all of Reviewer 1's changes shown as markup. You can then accept, reject, or review them as you would any tracked changes.

Combine — "Merge two reviewers' edits into one document"

Combine takes two reviewed copies of the same original (each with its own tracked changes) and merges them into a single document showing both reviewers' changes. Use when you sent the same document to two reviewers and got back two different sets of edits.

The output document shows all reviewers' edits as markup, attributed by name. You decide which edits to accept or reject.

Link to External Document Content

Inserting a link to external content means embedding content from another file (a Word doc, an Excel range, a PowerPoint slide) so that when the source file changes, your document's embedded content updates automatically. Without the link, content is a static copy.

Use cases: a quarterly report that pulls data from an Excel spreadsheet (the spreadsheet updates monthly; the report stays current). A team handbook that references a "current org chart" PowerPoint slide (someone updates the slide; the handbook updates everywhere automatically).

Without "Link to file" checked, the content is embedded but static — like a photograph of the source. With "Link to file" checked, the content updates when the source changes.

Enable Macros in a Document

Macros are small VBA programs embedded in .docm files (you'll build one in Week 15). When you open a .docm file, Word disables macros by default for security — malicious macros are a long-running attack vector. To run them, you have to explicitly enable them.

When opening a file with macros, Word displays a yellow Security Warning bar at the top: "SECURITY WARNING — Macros have been disabled. Enable Content"

Once you've enabled content for a file once and saved it, Word usually marks the file as a trusted document on your system and stops asking. If you don't see the warning bar, check File → Info → Enable Content for additional options.

For organizational settings or to manage macro security globally, the Trust Center controls permission rules:

Two distinct customization areas: the Quick Access Toolbar (the small row of icons at the very top of the Word window) and the Ribbon (the main tab bar). Both can be tailored to your workflow.

Manage the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT)

The Quick Access Toolbar is the row of small icons at the top-left of the Word window (Save, Undo, Redo by default). It's always visible regardless of which ribbon tab is active. Adding your most-used commands here means one click to access — no ribbon tab navigation.

The fastest way to add a command:

For more control:

To remove a button from the QAT, right-click the button on the QAT itself → Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.

You can also reset the QAT to defaults: File → Options → Quick Access Toolbar → Reset → "Reset only Quick Access Toolbar" → OK.

Display Hidden Ribbon Tabs (Including Developer)

By default, Word hides the Developer tab — the tab that contains macros, content controls, and form-related commands. For MO-111 work, you'll need it visible. To turn it on:

The Developer tab now appears in your ribbon, between View and Help (typically). The same dialog lets you show or hide other built-in tabs (Draw, Mailings, etc.) by checking or unchecking their boxes.

You can also create entirely new custom tabs and groups from this dialog — useful for organizing commands you use across multiple workflows. We won't cover custom tab creation this week (that's a Week 15-16 topic when we get into macros), but the option lives here.

This week's commands live mostly in dialogs and File menus, so there are fewer shortcut-driven workflows. The two most useful keyboard shortcuts:

Nine new MO-111 Domain 1 terms this week. Click each card to reveal its definition. Test yourself by reading the term and trying to define it before flipping.

Six quick recognition checks. Select an answer for each question, then press Submit to check your score.