Have you ever found yourself editing a Word document from SharePoint, wanting to add some keywords to your metadata, then digging around Word for 15 minutes trying to find where to open the document information panel?  Well, I have, and um, I do this for a living.  :)   Lucky for us I happened upon a way to always open the document information panel whenever opening a document from within SharePoint; the setting is in our friend the content type.

Here's how to enable it:

1. Navigate to the content type settings page (where you manage columns, etc)
   
   1. this could be a custom content type for a library
      OR
   2. the base "Document" content type to apply this setting to all document libraries in your site collection
2. Under the settings section, select "Document Information Panel settings"
   • 


3. Check the box that says "Always show Document Information Panel on document open and initial save for this content type"; click OK
   
   • 
   
   

What do you do if you don't want to change the "Document" content type and don't use a content type on your library?   Each document library has an "instance" of the a content type (usually "Document" even if you don't see it)...you can edit this instance to set the document information panel settings:

1. Navigate to the settings page of the library
2. Under settings, select "Advanced Settings"
   • 


3. Select "yes" in the Allow Management of Content Types section; click ok
   • 


4. You will now see a "Content Types" section on the settings page; select "Document" then complete steps 2 and 3 from the first example
   •