If you want to create a well-formatted document in Google Docs, using a template can be a wonderfully quick and easy way to do that. And if you go to docs.google.com, you’ll see that Google gives you a few pre-made templates to choose from like Brochure, Resume, and many more.
But if you want something more customized, or a special sort of template that only you would want, there is actually a way that you can create your very own template.
It’s a bit of a workaround way and it won’t appear in the template gallery at the top of your Google Docs homepage, but it does work pretty well and it’s actually not that difficult to do.
So if you want to create your own customized Google Docs template, just follow the steps below!
Prefer to watch a video on how to create a template in Google Docs? Click here.
How To Make A Template In Google Docs
The first thing you’ll need to do is actually build your template in a Google Doc. If you already have a Google Doc that looks exactly how you want your template to look, you can just skip this step.
But if you don’t, go ahead and click on the plus button in the top left-hand corner of the Google Docs homepage and start designing your template.
I can’t really tell you exactly how to design your template because that’s really up to how you want it to look and what you want to do with it.
You could add headings, change the font, color, and text sizes, add images, bullet points, and much more.
I’m not going to put a huge amount of effort into my template as it’s only an example, but just so you get the idea, I’ll add a heading with a fancy font and some bullet points.
Once you’re happy with your template (whether it’s a new one you just created or one from an existing document), you’ll need to name it by double-clicking on the title in the top left-hand corner of the screen and typing a new name so that you know it’s the template.
I’d recommend naming it with whatever you want to use the template for with the word template on the end. Eg: List Template, or Newsletter Template. But for the purpose of this article, I’m just going to name it “Example Template”.
Now to do the next part, you’ll need to go into Google Drive by going to drive.google.com.
Once you’re there, you need to make a new folder inside Google Drive that you can use to store all your templates, to do this, click on the “New” button in the top left-hand corner.
And then click “folder”.
And now it will ask you to give the folder a name, name it something like “Templates” or “Google Docs Templates” so it’s easy to remember, and then click “CREATE”.
Now you’ll have a folder in Google Drive called “Google Docs Templates”, next you’ll need to find the template you just created and move it into the folder.
I have my Google Drive sorted by “Last modified” so my template is at the top of the list of files, but if you have your Google Drive sorted a different way, you might have to scroll down a bit to find it.
Once you’ve found your template, click and drag it up the screen and drop it into the new folder you just created to move it in there.
Then, if you double click on the templates folder to go inside it, you should see your Google Doc template.
How To Use Your New Template
Once you’ve created your template and moved it into the folder using the steps above, whenever you want to use your new template, you’ll just need to go into Google Drive and go into the folder named “Google Docs Templates” (which is where you can save all your templates to make them easily accessible).
Then, just right click on the template you want to use (two-finger click with a trackpad), and click “Make a copy”.
This will make a new Google Doc that looks just like your template, but it is actually a separate document so you can make changes and do whatever you want with it without affecting your original template.
Then, to keep things neat, drag and drop your new doc out of the “Google Docs Templates” folder and into “My Drive”, and then click on “My Drive” and find your new doc in there.
Once you’ve found the doc, double click on it and it will open up in Google Docs ready to use.
Once it’s open, you’ll probably want to rename it to something other than “Copy of Example Document” by double-clicking on the current title and typing a new name. But then you’ve got a new Google Doc based on your template!
Now you can start filling it with information just like you would with one of the templates provided by Google.
So, What did you think of my workaround for creating a template? I know it’s not quite as convenient as using a pre-made template, but it works and I think it’s still fairly easy.
