Embedding Word Docs Into Another Word Doc - Good Idea or Not?

[WTBsearch]

Back in my PC days, with Outlook, I could do this: create a table with
several cells worth of text information, and then paste documents (in
icon form - I would attach them to a blank Outlook e-mail and cut them
from there) into the appropriate cell of my table. (If it helps, I'm a
headhunter, and I loved this format for transmitting candidate
information to clients. It looked great, and got the job done.)

Admittedly, there were times when I had clients whose systems didn't
support the size of one of these doc's, but mostly it worked well.

So now, I'm in Word for Mac, and gmail routed through my Apple Mail.
Can't do what I used to do. And possibly, it's not even a great idea,
considering available memory issues.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Vita

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Vita:

1) You can do it. Use Insert>Object>Microsoft Word document>From file...

2) It's a "qualified" good idea. In other words: it's good for some
situations (for example, it's good for the situation you describe).

You should not do this if the inserted document is "large" (over 100 pages
or so) or if you expect the recipient to be editing the inserted document.

This practice makes the file very complex internally, and thus less
reliable.

Hope this helps

Back in my PC days, with Outlook, I could do this: create a table with
several cells worth of text information, and then paste documents (in
icon form - I would attach them to a blank Outlook e-mail and cut them
from there) into the appropriate cell of my table. (If it helps, I'm a
headhunter, and I loved this format for transmitting candidate
information to clients. It looked great, and got the job done.)

Admittedly, there were times when I had clients whose systems didn't
support the size of one of these doc's, but mostly it worked well.

So now, I'm in Word for Mac, and gmail routed through my Apple Mail.
Can't do what I used to do. And possibly, it's not even a great idea,
considering available memory issues.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Vita

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[WTBsearch]

OMG, John - How amazingly simple! Thank you SO MUCH for your help!!

One more question: This particular doc I need to create features 14
candidates, and each of the 14 has three attachments (resume, letter,
additional questionnaire). The documents range from three to twelve
pages each, with more of them being short than long. Would this make a
single doc too unwieldy or tough to open/work with? And if so -
(sorry, this is getting to be two questions, isn't it?) - would
splitting it into TWO docs (seven candidates each) help?

You can probably tell from my post that I'm not a techie, but I've
always said, "It's not what you know, it's who you know" that counts -
and I mean that in a good way!

Cheers,

Vita

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Vita:

The only way to find out is to try it.

If all of the documents involved have been properly formatted using styles,
then it will be fine.

If you leave tracked changes on, the documents have been formatted by
hack-and-chop editing, and you then try to make changes, the entire document
will probably corrupt.

Any document under 100 pages is "short" In Word, the thing that
stresses the system is "complexity", not "size". A Word document can go up
to about 5,500 pages in a single file. If all it contains is "text" Word
will have no trouble, because internally that's just one "thing".

On the other hand, a single-page document containing a table and a picture
can be very fragile, because internally it may be thousands of "things".

The best way to find out is to make a copy and TRY it. If it blows up,
don't rely on that method with those documents. If it works, you saved
yourself some time

Cheers

OMG, John - How amazingly simple! Thank you SO MUCH for your help!!

One more question: This particular doc I need to create features 14
candidates, and each of the 14 has three attachments (resume, letter,
additional questionnaire). The documents range from three to twelve
pages each, with more of them being short than long. Would this make a
single doc too unwieldy or tough to open/work with? And if so -
(sorry, this is getting to be two questions, isn't it?) - would
splitting it into TWO docs (seven candidates each) help?

You can probably tell from my post that I'm not a techie, but I've
always said, "It's not what you know, it's who you know" that counts -
and I mean that in a good way!

Cheers,

Vita

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410