Use Custom Office Application Templates as Content Types Inside Document Libraries

Anjali Sharma
-Expert in Residence

The ‘New’ menu on the toolbar inside a document library allows the user to create a document based on what was set up as the default content type for that library. This is useful, as a frequent requirement for most intranet sites is to create documents based on a template or a form (usually a custom Excel Spreadsheet or a custom Word Document).

To enable this feature, allow the document library to manage content types from the ‘Advanced Settings’. Create a new content type at the top level site and set it to use the custom document template from the ‘Advanced Settings’. Add this content type to the document library. The ‘New’ menu will then allow the user to add a new document based on the custom template.

There can be any number of content types that can be added to a document library. The order in which the templates appear under the ‘New’ menu can easily be configured with the first one being the default.

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