Is there a keyboard shortcut for 'new document from template' in Word 2010?

Question

Where 'new document' has Ctrl+N to start a new document, is there a keyboard shortcut that will present me with the templates windows to select a template to create a new document with? A search for answers here and elsewhere online hasn't yielded anything useful yet.

Answer 1

Do you mean to say you want the following File/New dialog to show up on pressing a keyboard shortcut?

That's quite easy to do! Most people don't know that keyboard shortcuts can be customized in Office apps as per user preferences. For example, I didn't like how Word 2010 popped up the Navigation Pane (Pain?) when I pressed Ctrl+F, instead of the simple Find and Replace dialog that older versions did, so I simply remapped the shortcut to the older dialog and now all's fine with the wor(l)d! :)

1. Go to File / Options (indented under Help) / Customize Ribbon

2. Press the Keyboard shortcuts: Customize button shown below:

   

3. Select All Commands under Categories and FileNew under Commands

4. Navigate to/click in the Press new shortcut key field and press your desired shortcut (I have pressed Alt+` (backquote/tilde key) in the screenshot below:

   

5. Click Assign (the shortcut key will move to the Current keys area)

6. Finally, click Close and OK in the Word Options dialog

   

7. You're done! Press Alt+` and watch the magic unfold! :D

Note #1: If you go through the default mapped shortcuts, you'll see that it's very much possible to assign multiple keyboard shortcuts to the same command.

Note #2: To duplicate the Find dialog fix I mentioned above, simply assign the Ctrl+F shortcut key to EditFind instead of the default NavPaneSearch, or you can assign a different shortcut to the former if you prefer quick access to both old and new Find dialogs.

Answer 2

Yes, by using a macro - as you already know how to assign the key (in accepted answer), I've just provide the VBa

Sub NewDocumentFromTemplate()
  Documents.Add Template:=Options.DefaultFilePath(wdUserTemplatesPath) & "\Custom\Foo.dotm"
End Sub