The following macro in your dependant documents will update the information
from your common file, assuming that you've used includetext fields to bring
it in.

You can put the following into an AutoOpen macro in your document (which
will only work if macro security is set to allow it).

Sub AutoOpen()
' Written by Charles Kyle Kenyon 15 November 2001
' repaired by Jezebel
' All Story Field Updater - includetext
Dim oField As Field
Dim oStory As Range
' On Error Resume Next
For Each oStory In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges
' This goes into headers and footers as well as the regular document
Do
For Each oField In oStory.Fields
If oField.Type = WdFieldTypeIncludeText Then
oField.Update
End If
Next oField
Set oStory = oStory.Next
Loop Until oStory Is Nothing
Next oStory
End Sub

You will need to allow the macro to run, though. You could attach the
dependant documents to a template containing this macro and allow macros to
run from installed templates and add-ins and still keep your macro security
high. Note, your users will get a message when they close the document
asking if they want to save changes. Hope this helps.
--
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://www.mvps.org/word 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.

"Bryan L" wrote in message
...
We have a large collection of documents (roughly 100) with one section in
common. That common section contains pictures and contact information for
a group of employees. Any time we have employee turnover within that
group (which happens regularly, if not often), each of the roughly 100
documents needs to have that common section updated, which right now is a
tedious manual process. I'm looking for a way to create that section in
one place, and link it to the 100 documents that use it so when a change
is needed, I change the source and it's reflected in all the documents to
which it's linked.

I've searched within the help for Word, but can't seem to find what I'm
looking for. Should I be looking to link a Word document to another Word
document? Or should I try to create the source in Excel or PowerPoint and
link to Word?

Any help appreciated...I'm having difficulty finding a high-level overview
of how to accomplish what I need.

Thanks in advance,

Bryan