Word Building Blocks | CustomGuide

Word Building Blocks

How to Create and Use Building Blocks in Word

Word Building Blocks

Building blocks are pieces of reusable text, graphics, and objects that you can easily insert in your documents. They can be as simple as an opening line to a paragraph, or as complex as an entire cover page.

Create a Building Block

  1. Select the text or graphic you want to save as a building block.
  2. Click the Insert tab.
  3. Click the Quick Parts button.
  4. Select Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.

    The Create New Building Block dialog box opens, where you can give the building block a name, category, and description.

    Create and Use Building Blocks

  5. (Optional) Change the building block’s name, category, and description.

    If the building block you’re creating is a cover page, page number, header, footer, quick table, or watermark, you can add it to one of those existing galleries. Otherwise, you can specify Quick Parts so that it will appear in the Quick Parts gallery.

  6. (Optional) Select a gallery.
  7. Click OK.
    Create and Use Building Blocks

The building block is added to the selected gallery.

Insert a Building Block

Building blocks that you’ve added to certain galleries, such as the cover page, page number, or watermark galleries, will be available when you open those galleries.

If you want to see all the building blocks in one place, no matter which gallery you added them to, you can browse the Building Blocks Organizer.

  1. Click the Quick Parts button on the Insert tab.

    The Quick Parts gallery will display the building blocks that you’ve added to that gallery. If the building block you want to insert is here, you can just select it.

  2. Select Building Blocks Organizer.

    The Building Blocks Organizer window opens, listing all the building blocks available to insert.

    Create and Use Building Blocks

  3. Sort the building blocks by name, gallery, or category by clicking the column headers.
  4. Select a building block.

    A preview of the building block appears on the right side of the window, with its name and description below.

  5. Click Insert.
    Create and Use Building Blocks

The building block is inserted.

Move a Building Block to Another Template

When you create a building block, it’s saved as part of a special Building Blocks template. Anything saved in this template will be available in any document you work on, from the computer it was created on. If you'll only need a certain building block in documents based off one template, or if you want to distribute a building block with that template, you can save a building block to another template instead.

  1. Click the Quick Parts button on the Insert tab.
  2. Select the Building Blocks Organizer.

    As you can see in the Template column, building blocks can be stored in either document templates, or a special Building Blocks template.

    Create and Use Building Blocks

  3. Select a building block that you want to move.
  4. Click the Edit Properties button.

    The Modify Building Block window opens, where you can edit the same properties that are available when you first create a building block.

    Create and Use Building Blocks

  5. Click the Save In list arrow.

    This list displays the Building Blocks template, as well as the template or templates that the current document is based on.

  6. Select a template.
    Create and Use Building Blocks
  7. Click OK.
  8. Click Yes.
    Create and Use Building Blocks

The building block is moved to the selected template.