At times you might want to associate a document with a different template, or perhaps you’re working with a document that did not start from a template.

One of the major advantages of using templates is the ease of updating styles in more than one document, as described in Chapter 7 (Working with Styles). If you update styles by loading a new set of styles from a different template (as described in Chapter 7), the document has no association with the template from which the styles were loaded—so you cannot use this method. What you need to do is associate the document with the different template.

You can do this in two ways. In both cases, for best results the names of styles should be the same in the existing document and the new template. If they are not, you will need to use Search and Replace to replace old styles with new ones. See Chapter 3 (Working with Text) for more about replacing styles using Search and Replace.

Method 1

This method includes any graphics and wording (such as legal notices) that exists in the new template, as well as including styles. If you don’t want this material, you need to delete it.

1. Use File > New > Templates and Documents. Choose the template you want. If the template has unwanted text or graphics in it, delete them.
2. Open the document you want to change. (It opens in a new window.) Press Control+A to select everything in the document. Paste into the blank document created in step 1.
3. Update the table of contents, if there is one. Save the file.

Method 2

This method does not include any graphics or text from the new template; it simply includes styles from the new template and establishes an association between the template and the document.

1. Download the Template Changer extension from https://extensions.services.openoffice.org/ and install it as described here.
2. Close and reopen OpenOffice.org. Now the File > Templates menu has two new choices: Assign Template (current document) and Assign Template (folder).
3. Open the document whose template you want to change. Choose File > Templates > Assign Template (current document).
4. In the Select Template window, find and select the required template and click Open.
5. Save the document. If you now look in File > Properties, you will see the new template listed at the bottom of the General page.