Business templates are available for a range of purposes, including business reports, brochures, letters, letterheads, presentations, memos, agendas, minutes, labels, certificates, planners, price lists, receipts, invoices, timesheets, newsletters, budget planners, balance sheets, expense reports, inventory lists, and many more.
Business templates are suitable for all the top software packages and word processing software, including MS Word and OpenOffice Writer, and online software such as OneDrive Word, Google Docs and iCloud Pages.
Business Templates for Microsoft Word
A good place to start for free Word Business Templates is the main Office Templates website at Office Templates. Browse to the Business category (Office Templates Business Category) and select the template that fits your requirements. Click on Download and save the template, which should have the .dotx file extension, to a suitable place on the hard drive. Renaming the template to something relevant might be a good idea at this point.
Start MS Word to open the main browser window and select the Open icon at the bottom left. If a Word Document is already open then go to the File menu and select New from Template to open the browser and go from there.
Browse to the folder location where the Business template is stored and select it. Either double click it or select the Open button to open the template. The Business template is now open in Word ready for editing, but it will still be the .dotx template file, so pressing save at this point or after making changes will over-write the template. That's Ok if the changes are to be made permanent to the template, but not if it needs to be used in the original form multiple times. To ensure the original template is not changed then simply go to the File menu and choose Save As to save the template to a suitable folder with a relevant file name and the .dotx file extension. Normal editing can now go ahead and the save button pressed, or autosave enabled, until it's ready for use.
Business Templates for OpenOffice Writer
The main OpenOffice Templates repository at OpenOffice Templates has plenty of free templates available, with a top level category for Business templates. Select the Business category on the left side to open the sub-categories, then select Writer in the Filter by Application options on the left. Use the search box at the top to use the filter to find specific types of Business templates.
Choose a suitable template and click on it to get more details and the option to Download. Selecting the Download button will open a new window and the download screen. Save the template in a suitable folder, with the file extension .ott, and change the name if required to something more meaningful. If the template is saved to the default Templates directory (check the preferences for this) then it will appear in the main starting window under templates.
From the OpenOffice main starting window click on the Open button, or select Open from the File menu at the top. This will open a file browser window, and the Business template can be selected from the location that it was saved. Once open in Writer it will have the default name "Untitled 1". Selecting the save buttin, or Save from the File menu, will open the Save As dialogue box which will allow the document to be saved with a suitable file name in the choosen folder, with the .odt file extension automatically added so there is no risk if over writing the original template.
Business Templates for OneDrive Word
The online version of Word available from Microsoft's OneDrive (Microsoft's OneDrive Word) has templates built in that include templates for Business. From the main page of Word on OneDrive select the More templates link and then search for the specifc business template type. Select the required Business template and then either Download to the hard drive or Edit in Browser to open it directly in Word online to start editing. It will be automatically saved as a Document in the OneDrive file manager.
Scroll to the bottom of the templates page and select the link to Explore all templates to oen the main Microsift template gallery as above.
Business Templates for Google Docs
Google Docs has a built in Template gallery that appears on the main starting page. Unfortunately the gallery doesn't include many Business templates at this time. Google Docs will allow the use of templates designed for MS Word but it requires another step to open them. Unfortunately there may be some template features that don't import and may be lost, such as graphic elements, but it's worth checking out!
A template can be opened or imported when a Google Document is open, so start by selecting the Blank template from the gallery or opening an existing doc.
From the open document use the menu bar at the top to select File... Open and then select the Upload tab. Either "Select a file from your device" or drag and drop to open a previously saved Word template in Google Docs. The newly opened template will be automatically saved with its file name, which can be changed either from within the document editor or Google Drive.
Business Templates for iCloud Pages
iCloud Pages also doesn't include Business templates in it's online template gallery. As with Google Docs it is possible to open and use templates saved from MS Word. From the main iCloud Pages window select the Upload icon in the top bar, browse to the saved MS Word template and select to import into iCloud Pages. The template import is more reliable than with Google Docs and retains the formatting better.