Microsoft Word offers thousands of templates to save you from having to create your own designs from scratch, meaning they're a real time-saver—in an ideal world. In fact, they can sometimes ...

The no-muss, no-fuss letterhead template Start by opening a new blank document in Word and saving it as a template, using the .dot extension for Word 2003, or the .dotx extension for Word 2007.

Finally, save the file as a template: In Word 2003, click File > Save As, give the template a name such as "Two-column layout," choose a location for the file (more on this below), select Document ...