Turning templates into ordinary documents

Hi there,

I’m sure this is a very simple question, but it escapes despite searching through both the help files and this forum…

I don’t understand how templates work, or rather how they are turned into ordinary files (“save as…”). For example, let’s say I want to make a template for a master travel packing list. I list everything under different sections for a variety of trips and save it as a template. Then, I have an upcoming trip and I want to modify my list to only include things for, for example, a vacation trip. So, I delete all rows that are work related ( e.g. “work laptop”) to make the list manageable. I also add some rows that are specific to this trip only (say “Italy guide”).

Now when I try to save the modified template it seems to only let me save it as a template again. Or, worse, when I hit save it modifies the original template. How do I save this document as a one time use, ordinary outliner document?

Many thanks for your help!

After creating your template, you want to create a new document based on the template instead of editing the template itself. Assuming you used the File > Save As Template option, then your template is saved in the correct spot for the Resource Browser to automatically see it. Locate your template in the Resource Browser, by default it would be placed under the Miscellaneous folder. Double-click the template or select it and click the New Outline button in the bottom right. This will give you a new untitled outline that matches your template’s contents and styles and is set to save as a regular OmniOutliner document.

Thanks Derek - that helped! Luckily it was, as predicted, a very simple fix. I realised that when I was in the resource browser I was in the “recent” section (top in the sidebar on the left). You can’t click “New Outline” from there, only “Open” - which is apparently where you modify your existing template (it would only save from there as “.otemplate”). Once I went to “Miscellaneous” the button in bottom right (the one you pointed out) changed to “New Outline”, and presto, a new document!
Thanks very much!
I must say though that I did not find that very intuitive, considering how intuitive the rest of the program is! I thought recent templates was just a short cut to my most used templates. Now on to create some more outlines and templates :)

Agreed that it’s not very intuitive that a user’s templates are saved under “Miscellaneous”. From the user’s perspective, they are probably the most important templates. Also, there ought to be a way to have “Recents” include the recent things I’ve done, which is create a template/