You do _not_ need to use the Master Document "feature" and should avoid
doing so. "Master Document" is a term of art in Word referring to a
"feature" that not only doesn't work but also destroys documents. The
consensus (with the limited exception of Steve Hudson) among those offering
advice on these newsgroups is that using the Master Document feature is a
good way to
destroy your document. It can destroy parts of your document that you are
not even working on! I think John McGhie said it succinctly when he said
that there are two kinds of Master Documents: Those that are corrupt and
those that will be corrupt soon. See
http://www.addbalance.com/word/masterdocuments.htm for information on the
Master Document feature and workarounds. See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...ocsCorrupt.htm for more
information on what goes wrong, and
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...MasterDocs.htm for ideas on how
to salvage what you can. See
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ma...masterdocs.doc for
Steve Hudson's instructions if you are willing to follow them very
carefully.

--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

"yepp" wrote in message
oups.com...

Cindy M -WordMVP- wrote:
Hi Yepp,

I am inserting subdocuments (other word documents) From the
instructions on the Help menu, it says

"Microsoft Word inserts a next page section break before the
subdocument and a continuous section break after it."

Since MS inserts these page breaks, maybe that is why I cannot delete
them??

Well, *I* can delete them, so that's not the issue...

Best guess, in this case, is that the file structure has been damaged -
not so unusual for a Master Document (which is why one discourages
their use).

If you start over with a new Master document and insert a couple of
documents can you delete these section breaks?

And, I'll come back again to a question I asked right at the beginning
of this discussion: Are you absolutely sure the customer wants to use
this feature? WHY does he insist on it? What does it offer him that's
not otherwise available? How is he planning to use it?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question
or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Hi Cindy,

Yes, I started several new "Masters" and the same thing happens on all.
Even one with only 1 sub document added.

The finished file is to put into PDF format and sent to the customer.
Also, that is what they requested. But, I have had so much trouble, I
started to make files of 500 pages each and will do a separate TOC in a
document and reference them.

After I am finished with the separate 500 pages, I will *TRY* to
incorporate them into a Master file, but I have doubts.

I don't know why you can delete section breaks and I can't. I am using
XP.