How to create an installation file for a document-level VSTO template?

This is hardly the first time this question has been asked, but there are no completely satisfactory answers that have been presented, and nearly ALL of them rely upon Microsoft's error-laden developer documentation.

After creating a vb.net VSTO Excel Template project using Visual Studio 2019 with Office 2016 and porting exiting VBA code to vb.net, I have run into a brick wall. I was able to convert the code to vb.net without too much trouble, and thanks to the .net libraries, I was able to include additional functionality that before was impossible with VBA (e.g. Action Panel menus, etc.). But now I cannot distribute the solution to my employees because I cannot create a setup file that will allow the template code to run correctly when the resulting document is saved to any location other than where it was first installed.

I have tried using the supposedly simple ClickOnce method. I have tried the Windows Installer method. We don't have a Sharepoint server (we are a small company) and I don't want to learn how to create one. I have followed the examples at

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/deploying-an-office-solution-by-using-windows-installer?view=vs-2019

and

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/deploying-an-office-solution-by-using-clickonce?view=vs-2019

and

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/vsto/deploying-a-vsto-solution-by-using-windows-installer?view=vs-2019#to-build-the-setup-project

and several other Microsoft Visual Studio VSTO instructional articles to no avail. I still cannot get the resulting template file to reference the necessary libraries when the template is moved or saved to any location on a user's computer other than its original install folder. This pretty much makes the solution useless to me. You would think something this important to so many VBA users would be a priority to Microsoft, but it clearly is not. Microsoft refuses to fix/update its documentation, and it ignores vb.net like Microsoft's own policies had nothing to do with why so many of us use it.

I would post my code, but I have no idea what code, in what has now become a rather complicated solution, is causing the problem. My only clue is the error message, which appears whenever the Excel workbook is saved somewhere else and states that "my solution".vsto could not be downloaded because Office is looking under where the template is now stored rather than the original installation directory.