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Templates are useful if you use the same type of document with particular formatting repeatedly. There are several tips on the web, but in short, create a template as a blank, new template, as opposed to creating a new blank document and saving it as a template (or worse, saving an existing document as a template). The article below discusses temapltes but also fonts, which is interesting. In brief, for web-reading, using non-justified Arial.
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/customization/createatemplatepart1.htm
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart2.htm