intranets - office templates etc

[jpmoriarty]

Evenin' all,

I'm trying to improve my intranet at work, and would quite like to include some way of adding links to company template files to the site. I can do a hyperlink just as normal, but they open up as the template as opposed to creating a new document based on that template.

Is there some command line I need to use to get it to do it? Also, is there some excellent site that I'm missing out on (apart form this one of course!) that gives great tips for intranets, ASP's and intranets, and office and intranet integration?

Many thanks in advance

[jpmoriarty]

Thanks for that, but the intention was to actually open the template file in word - the intranet that the site is running on is for a small company (1 site, ~40 pc's), so I know that I can reference the file with a URL (ie \\server2\templates\companyletter.dot) and everyone will be able to see it since they're all attached to the same server. I want it to run on the intranet because then I can do things like build an ASP that displays a differnet selection for each user - ie accounts see the letter template, but project managers see the letter, the memo, the project database etc.

All I want to achieve is a link to the file that instead of opening the template (which is what happens if you follow the hyperlink), it opens a new file based on that template.

Never know, it might not be possible at all!, but just thought that it's the type of thing that MS might be trying to encourage... maybe not tho!

[jpmoriarty]

I thought it might have something to do with command lines - I've tried hyper linking to something like "*****.dot -new" but that doesnt work either: guess it was a bit of a long shot!

I wonder if i did the hyper link to a shortcut or something would that work? The problem seems to be that I don't actualyl want to download the file, I only want to follow the link (like one would follow a shortcut on your desktop). Is this just pushing the uses of HTML too far? Has anyone used an intranet for this sort of thing before? And has anyone come up with a good intranet site?

many thanks, as always, in advance.

ps. well, that does work - if i make a shortcut to the template and then hyperlink to the shortcut, then it opens a new fdocument based on that template. I bet that's not a very good way of doing it though, since for one you have to tell it to open the file from the location (it gives you the option to save), and i guess it's downloading the link to the temp file each time. So we've got a partial solution, but can anyone make it better??!! I'd love it if you could!

[smurfy]

http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/ch9.htm

Outdated (Office97!) but about 1/2 way down the page...
WebData.dot/.doc (see Figure 9-6) is a Word-based application that gets data from users. Whether you use the DOT form or the DOC form depends entirely on how you distribute it. For example, use the template (WebData.dot) if users will double-click on the file or its shortcut to launch it. (In this case, Word creates a new document based on the template automatically.) Use the DOC form if you distribute it through e-mail.

Sounds exactly like what you want... but how?... Still looking but I don't think this is neccesarily solvable from within the page design but more in the Windows File Type associations...