Can I Base an Object Template on Another Template?

You can certainly base templates on other templates. In fact, we recommend it. That way, it's easier to manage global changes but also possible to specify variations in your standards.

For example, the standard Author-it object templates for Linked Files (like Linked GIF and Linked Icon) are all based on the Linked Graphic Directory template, which only specifies the location of the directory containing all your graphic files. When you want to change the location of that directory, you only need to do it in the Linked Graphic Directory template, and Author-it automatically updates that setting in all your File Objects, within seconds.

Note: For technical reasons, Related Topic Groups can only be inherited once, so they will not be inherited by a topic based on a template based on another template - although every other feature of the topic template will be inherited correctly.