Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual

Storing Project Settings and Elements

Project has to keep its settings and built-in elements somewhere, and that somewhere is called the global template. It stores settings that tell Project how to behave—like whether you use the Gregorian calendar or want to automatically turn on AutoFilter. All the built-in elements that Project provides are in this file, too—like standard Gantt Chart view, the Standard calendar, and the Entry table. If you customize elements, you can copy them to the global template so they’re available to other projects. This section explains what the global template has to offer.

Note

Ribbon and Quick Access toolbar customizations also reside in the global template. Changes you make to the ribbon apply to Project itself, not just to a particular file, so you see them regardless of which project you work on. See Sharing a Custom Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar to learn how to apply Quick Access toolbar customizations to a specific Project file.

The global template is so special that the program attaches it to every Project file you create so your program-wide settings and elements are available. Under the hood, though, the global template is really just a regular project template file called global.mpt. If you create a copy of this file, you can open it in Project like any other file. The box on Locating the Global Template tells you where to find your global template file after you install Project. The global template stores the following elements:

• Your Project ...