Hi,
Do you have a more precise example to share ? This should work as expected when you follow these steps
- Render the document once
- Save the result document with a new name to be the template, modify the styles as you wish
- Use the document as template using the
reference_docx: key. Be sure to check YAML indentation so that the YAML key is correctly found.
This simple examples works for me
---
title: "test"
output:
bookdown::word_document2:
reference_docx: test-template.docx
---
# something
I just modified the heading 1 Style to change color.
Depending on what is not working for you, it is possible that you are tweaking the wrong style or the customization is not supported. But I would be surprise. It is just a guess - I need more information.