Help with my master document

[Jeff]

I have a problem handling my master document and would appreciate some
advice please! I'm using Word 2003 with all the updates applied.

I've created 8 separate docs for each section of a long document. Now each
chapter is complete, I've created a master document and inserted each of my
8 chapters as subdocuments, and all is well. I like the fact that if I spot
a typo and correct it in the master, that changes the sub. Neat.

So now the master doc is assembled and ready to go - but how do I make it
useful to my recipients? Each time I open it, all the subdocs are collapsed
and need to be expanded to be read onscreen, and if I email it somewhere, it
simply contains a list of invalid hyperlinks.

I'm sure this must be a simple step in the process, but I've scoured the
help files and can't solve the problem!

So - how do I merge all these docs together into one doc that can be emailed
and will open up in its entirety for my recipients please?

Thanks.

 

[Cindy M.]

Hi Jeff,

Supposedly, if all of you have Word 2003 and the master and subdocs are all
located in the same folder, the links will be "relative" behind the scenes and
it should work.

HOWEVER, given the instability of the Master Document feature, it would
probably be much better for you to "Remove Subdocument" (turns the sub-doc into
plain text within the Master) before emailing to others.

This feature was designed in the times of slower, weaker machines so that
people could work efficiently on large documents. It's purpose is to pull
everything together for printing. As soon as you start to use it for other
things, it has a nasty tendency to fall apart (and damage the files, sometimes
irrevocably).

I have a problem handling my master document and would appreciate some
advice please! I'm using Word 2003 with all the updates applied.

I've created 8 separate docs for each section of a long document. Now each
chapter is complete, I've created a master document and inserted each of my
8 chapters as subdocuments, and all is well. I like the fact that if I spot
a typo and correct it in the master, that changes the sub. Neat.

So now the master doc is assembled and ready to go - but how do I make it
useful to my recipients? Each time I open it, all the subdocs are collapsed
and need to be expanded to be read onscreen, and if I email it somewhere, it
simply contains a list of invalid hyperlinks.

I'm sure this must be a simple step in the process, but I've scoured the
help files and can't solve the problem!

So - how do I merge all these docs together into one doc that can be emailed
and will open up in its entirety for my recipients please?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Jeff]

Thanks for the wisdom Cindy! I thought this was the way to do it -
appreciate the warning. I've now created a complete doc another way...

 

[David]

Different problem, but kind of related - I have a Word document on the
server. When I open it, it appears and prints one way. When one of the
other users opens it, same thing - it appears and prints the same. Again
with a different user. But, with one of our users - Edy, the soft page
breaks are not in the same place. I tried putting in a hard page break on
the original document, but then on Edy's system it now shows an empty page
between where I put the hard page break and the next page.

Any answers???

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm