Get me started programming and debugging Microsoft Office automation

I'm using Microsoft Office 2003 and creating a bunch of template documents to standardize some tasks. I asked this on Superuser.com and got no 开发者_高级运维response so I'm thinking it's too program-y and hoping I'll have better luck here.

I need to automate a work flow that uses a bunch of Office (mostly Word) templates. What I want is to have "My Template Foo.dot" and "My Template Bar.dot", etc. in the "My Foo Bar Stuff" on a shared drive and have users double click on a template to create a new Foo or Bar.

What's I'd really like is for the user to double-click on the Foo template and be prompted for a couple of items related to their task (e.g., a project number) and have a script in the template change the name that Save will default to something like "Foo for Project 1234.doc".

I asked on Google Groups and got an answer that worked....for a while. Then my AutoNew macro stopped kicking in when I created a new document by double-clicking on the template. I have no idea why or how to debug it.

In Class Modules/This Application, I have:

Sub AutoNew()
    Dim Project As String
    Project = InputBox("Enter the Project Number")
    ActiveDocument.SaveAs "Project " & Project & " Notes.doc"
End Sub

In Microsoft Word Objects/ThisDocument, I have:

Private Sub Document_New()

End Sub

I really have no idea why or where that came from.

In Tools/Macro Security... I have Security Level set to "Low".

I'm a software engineering with 25+ years of experience but a complete Office automation noob. Specific solutions and pointers to "this is how to automate Word" FAQs are welcome. Thanks.

Update: If I create a new template (New..., Blank Document, Save As "My New Template.dot"), and insert the AutoNew() macro, it works. So what's inhibiting it from working on my existing template?

Update 2: Removing the module and function from my old template and adding it back works, too.

You can attach a template to a saved document in ordre to access the macros contained in the template in question.

You can do this with the AttachedTemplate property of a Document object (i.e. ActiveDocument). Please note that I did not try this myself.

Sub AutoNew()
   Dim Project As String
   Project = InputBox("Enter the Project Number")
   ActiveDocument.SaveAs "Project " & Project & " Notes.doc"

   ActiveDocument.AttachedTemplate = "\\path\to\templates\My Template Foo.dot"

End Sub

See MSDN - Word 2003 VBA Language Reference - AttachedTemplate Property

Hope that helps.

Check if the macro is still contained in your template. This sounds stupid but it happended to me, too, in Word 2003 under the following circumstances:

1. Create a template containing macro, everything fine
2. Create a new document file based on the macro, macro kicks in
3. Notice I could improve the template here and there a bit, I do it in the file created in 2) and SaveAs .DOT
4. Macro in .DOT GONE!

Why? Because the code stored in the .DOT doesn't go over to the doc file.