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user818050
Asked: 2018-04-14 07:46:41 +0800 CST

Can I have a desktop icon for creating new documents from a template?

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Is it possible to have an icon on the desktop so that when you double-click it it will create a new document from a certain template (New Invoice.ots located at ~/Templates)? It would be a bit more visual than the right-click New Document -> New Invoice.

.desktop templates

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You can create a new launcher in desktop which will help achieving your goal. To do that follow the steps below.

    1. Create a .desktop file (say template-generator.desktop) in ~/Desktop.
    2. Open the .desktop file with a text-editor.

    3. Add the following lines and save the file.

      [Desktop Entry]
Comment=Launcher to create a file from a template
Terminal=false
Name=Create Invoice from Template
Exec=/home/MyUsername/Templates/new_invoice.sh
Type=Application
Icon=/full/path/to/your/preferred/icon-file

      (Put your username in place of MyUsername.)

    4. Create the script new_invoice.sh in the Templates folder:

      template="$HOME/Templates/New Invoice.ots"
filename="$HOME/Documents/Invoice from $(date).ods"
cp "$template" "$filename"
xdg-open "$filename"

    5. Right click on the file, open Properties > Permissions, and select "allow executing file as program". Do the same for the .desktop file.

    6. Double click on the file. A warning window may appear asking you to "Trust and Launch". Do it.

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  2. What you need to know first is where templates are stored and recognize their extensions. Eg LibreOffice has its main template extension as .ott and stores its built-in document templates in /usr/lib/libreoffice/share/template/common/, and from there it's split under various folders according to the type of template - /usr/lib/libreoffice/share/template/common/personal/CV.ott as one example. So any personal templates created by yourself could be stored there, or kept under your Home folder, eg Home/Templates already exists. But I prefer to keep all templates under one roof rather than scattering them around.

    So if you want to put a template onto your desktop, simply copy it (in our example CV.ott) and paste it to Home/Desktop. You can rename it, eg, MyCV. Just remember, once it's opened to save as a text document, eg .odt Job done.

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