Microsoft Office is still the most popular office software used worldwide. By extension, I assume most writers are still using Microsoft Office, though many other specialty programs and tools exist, such as Scrivener.
I write for About.com as the Office Software Expert, connecting readers with productivity tools, tips, and resources. I recently created this slide show of 8 Free Microsoft Office Templates for Writers, which includes useful pre-made documents for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Publisher.
With thousands of templates available on Microsoft.com, hopefully this resource saves you some search time!
The slide show gives you direct links to templates for creating:
- Manuscripts
- Blog Posts (because you can Write and Post a Blog Directly from Microsoft Office)
- Emailed Newsletters
- Writing Project Timelines
- Author Bookmarks
- Promotional Post Cards (for book releases and such)
- Bookish Presentations (for teaching classes, speaking at conferences, or whatever!)
These templates might spark some new ideas or just help you jump into your many projects more quickly.
I’ve used most of these at some point, whether to begin a novel or work on some marketing materials for distribution at writing conferences.
Hope you find this useful! If so, please consider:
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The Productive Author 
D.G.Kaye
Great and informative post Cindy. I’m sharing and bookmarking! 🙂
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David
Was looking for the MS Ghantt chart writing tool at the MS link, but it’s not there. Is it anywhere else, presently?
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cindygrigg
Hi David! It seems Microsoft is changing their template site. Depending on which version of Office you have, you should be able to go into the program (in this case Excel) , select File – New then type Gantt in the search box. This worked for me in Office 2013. I hope you can find a similar workaround in your version! If not, it is possible Microsoft is trying to steer users to its newer versions of Office. Only the Offlice Online templates appear to be available on their previous site. I’ll update the article to say as much.
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