Microsoft Office 2004 Project Gallery
The PROJECT GALLERY feature is included in Office 2004 whenever you open an Office 2004 application (Word, Excel, or Powerpoint). This simple window acts as a starting point for you to begin a blank document, or work from one of many of Office's pre-made templates. The templates are where the Project Gallery really shines.
When the PROJECT GALLERY window appears, the tabs at the top give you five choices:
NEW - create a new document
RECENT - open recent documents
PROJECT - open project files that were created in Project Center
LEARN - explore reference and learning tools
CUSTOMIZE - make the PROJECT GALLERY look and behave the way you want.
Click once on a tab to select your option. The content of the main display window changes depending on which tab you choose.
Several menus are available for navigation throughout the window, dividing the available templates into a number of categories. Find your category of interest, then double-click on the desired document. Then click once on the OPEN button.
A quick note: the Project Gallery is universal to all three Office 2004 applications (i.e. you will see options for blank documents in Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, and the templates you see will also be the same). This means some of the choices for documents and templates will need to open up in another Office 2004 application. This is normal, and I mention it just so you can expect it.
If you want to follow along, open up any Office 2004 application (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), or if you already have one open, from the FILE menu select PROJECT GALLERY (or press the key combination SHIFT-COMMAND-P), then select the NEW tab.
The major categories (listed in the left column of the window) for the Project Gallery are:
- Blank Documents (for Word, Excel, Powerpoint)
- My Templates
- Based on Recent
- Business Forms
- Home Essentials
- Labels
- Letters - Envelopes
- Menus & Catalogs
- Newsletters
- Planners
- Presentations
- Web Pages
- Writing Toolbox
Keep reading for an explanation of each, or, to skip to a certain category, click the above link of the category you want.
Quick Tip: How do I prevent the Project Gallery from popping up every time I launch Word, Excel, or PowerPoint? Click here for the answer.
This is the default category that you see when the Project Gallery is first launched. It gives options for:
- AutoContent Wizard -- a guide through templates for making a PowerPoint presentation.
- PowerPoint Presentation -- a blank document to begin a new presentation.
- Excel Workbook -- a blank Excel document
- List Wizard -- a guide to make a very limited, custom Excel document
- Word Document -- a blank Word document
- Web Page -- a blank document for creating a web page in Word (without using HTML code)
In addition to using all of Office's pre-made templates, you can also make and use your own. (To do this, scroll down to the Advanced section at the end of this document.)
This option allows you to open quickly the most recently used Office X documents.
Templates for creating 15 types of Brochures, 12 types of Fax Covers, 11 types of Invoices, and 11 types of Letterheads. These are colorful, graphic-filled documents, and all open in Word.
Templates for home and family life, including 4 types of Family Medical Records and 4 types of Resumes, all opening in Word. There are also 3 Finance Tool worksheets and 4 Home Budget worksheets, which open in Excel and use equations and functions to automatically calculate budgets, investments, loans, etc.
This launches the Mailing Label Wizard from within Word. This wizard provides a simple window to enter and format addresses for mailing labels, which then will generate a page of labels that can be printed.
Templates for 2 types of Cover Letters, 3 types of general Letters, and 3 types of Stationery, all opening in Word. There are also two wizards: Envelope Wizard and Letter Wizard, which will guide you through the simple creation of each.
Templates for 16 different Catalogs and 16 different Menus. Each template launches Word and opens up a Wizard to guide you through the initial parts of your Catalog or Menu (such as Title, Restaurant, Address, Page Headings, Phone numbers, etc.)
Templates for 16 different Newsletters. Just like the Menus and Catalogs, these launch in Word and open up a Wizard to allow you to simply fill out the title, length, and layout of the Newsletter.
Templates for 3 types of Checklists, 3 types of Meal/Diet planners, 4 types of Shopping lists, and 3 types of "To Do" Lists. All open in Word, except for the Daily Food Diary and Meal Planner, which use Excel's advanced calculation abilities to figure out calorie and fat intake.
These are templates for creating PowerPoint presentations. They are 24 categorized by Content (24 types, such as Orientation, Meeting, Project Overview, Certificate) and Design (21 types, such as Balloons, Curtain, Stripes, Blank). Each contain a complete presentation, and guide you through customization by providing tips and asking questions.
Templates for creating a webpage through Word. There are 7 different kinds of templates, each designed by two different designers, Cypress and Zero. Once in Word, you can edit the webpage and export it to HTML to be viewed on the World Wide Web without having to know any code along the way.
Templates to help you begin writing 3 types of Journals (Baby, Family Tree, Writing) and 3 types of Reports (Book Report, Essay, Term paper); all open in Word.
What is all that at the bottom of the window?
You have five options at the bottom of the Project Gallery window.
VIEW lets you change the display of the Gallery from Catalog (which shows pictures of the templates) to List, which lists all the names of the templates, which program they open in (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) and a larger preview of the template selected.
SHOW lets you restrict the available templates to one certain application. For example, if you only wanted to see templates that open up in Word, you can change SHOW from "All Office Documents" to "Word Documents".
CREATE (the most important advanced feature). This changes the Project Gallery from creating "Documents" to creating "Templates" when you click on a template choice.
- But haven't I been creating templates this whole time? No, you have been using and modifying templates and then when you save your completed work, you end up with a normal Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document.
- If you change the CREATE choice to TEMPLATE, and select a choice from the many I listed above, you will still be using and modifying a template, but it is now YOURS. When you save it, it goes into the Project Gallery's MY TEMPLATES category, for you to use over and over again.
OPEN... brings up the normal Open File window, where you can open any saved Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document.
Show Project Gallery at startup-- this option, when deselected, will prevent the Project Gallery from opening every time you launch Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. You can toggle this option on or off any time you open Project Gallery.
Written by Matthew Dull '01; Updated for 2004 by Jordan McDonnell '08.