I wanted to share an issue I recently ran into when rebuilding Word document templates in Dentally, in case it helps others and saves some time.
We’ve very recently migrated from EXACT to Dentally, and as part of that process we’re trying to re-establish our trusted systems and templates (including referral templates) that are essential for day-to-day clinical and administrative workflows.
The problem
Dentally data tags will not work in Word documents that are protected (for example, restricted editing or form protection).
This is particularly relevant for documents such as referral templates, as hospital referral templates are often protected by default.
This limitation isn’t currently called out in the Dentally help guide on Word templates. I also contacted Dentally support, but unfortunately they were not able to identify the cause or provide a practical solution, which meant the issue remained unresolved.
The solution
Once the document protection is removed, data tags work as expected.
If you don’t have the password or the document is difficult to unprotect directly in Word, this workaround worked reliably for me:
Steps:
- Upload the password-protected Word document to Google Docs
- Open it in Google Docs
- Go to File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx)
This downloads an unprotected version of the document. After that, Dentally data tags function correctly.
Why I’m sharing this
I spent a lot of time troubleshooting this and only arrived at the solution through trial and error. It would have been extremely helpful to know upfront that protected Word documents are incompatible with data tags, particularly for practices newly migrated from EXACT who are rebuilding established workflows.
Hopefully this saves someone else the same frustration. It may also be worth Dentally explicitly documenting this limitation or adding it to support guidance.
