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  #1   Report Post  
Jeff
 
Posts: n/a
Default Advice about Master documents

Hi (using Word 2002 in XP).

I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking for
a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document as a
tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was writing in
WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard that master
documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in Word. Is that
true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents. Can they be
avoided?

Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the chapters in
this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with the
heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm considering
doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket that might
get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry about that?

This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.

Thanks for any suggestions and ideas.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam




  #2   Report Post  
Anne Troy
 
Posts: n/a
Default

1. Yes, Master/Subs in Word still sucks.
2. Don't worry about corruption of your one document. Instead, why don't you
turn on creating a backup file under Tools--Options, Save tab?
3. How big is your document? When I was writing my book, I used the document
map feature to move around 'cause inevitably, I kept inserting new pieces of
info that belonged here and there.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com


"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi (using Word 2002 in XP).

I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking

for
a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document as a
tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was writing in
WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard that master
documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in Word. Is that
true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents. Can they be
avoided?

Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the chapters

in
this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with the
heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm considering
doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket that might
get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry about that?

This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.

Thanks for any suggestions and ideas.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam






  #3   Report Post  
Daiya Mitchell
 
Posts: n/a
Default

See here, for one:
Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=148

IncludeText Fields might be an option, though this is a simplistic intro to
them:
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm

Steve Hudson [Word Heretic] on how to make Master Documents work safely:
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ma...dhomepage.html

More on why MDs are unreliable:

Why Master Documents corrupt:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...ocsCorrupt.htm

How to recover a Master Document:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...MasterDocs.htm

You are not wrong to worry about putting all eggs in one basket, but the
answer to that is backup frequently--turn on the Make BackUp option as Anne
said, but also backup frequently yourself.

I am not sure what difference frames may make to any of these options.
Theoretically, none, I think.


On 6/21/05 11:49 AM, "Jeff" wrote:

Hi (using Word 2002 in XP).

I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking for
a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document as a
tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was writing in
WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard that master
documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in Word. Is that
true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents. Can they be
avoided?

Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the chapters in
this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with the
heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm considering
doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket that might
get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry about that?

This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.

Thanks for any suggestions and ideas.


--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

  #4   Report Post  
Robert M. Franz (RMF)
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hello Jeff

Jeff wrote:
I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking for
a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document as a
tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was writing in
WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard that master
documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in Word. Is that
true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents. Can they be
avoided?


To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is
whether the individual files you have right now are based on the same
template, and whether the formatting used is consistent over these
files. These things need sorting out if not only done so; and before
that, even _thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the chapters in
this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with the
heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm considering
doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket that might
get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry about that?


You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields, then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.


Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question
I'd raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text
around your frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we
talking about, btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they
were not made in Word itself)?

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word
  #5   Report Post  
Jeff
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hi Robert

To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files. These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Yes they all were and will be written using the same template and styles.

You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields, then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


There will be about 400 pages (book pages) plus a great many images. Never
heard of INCLUDETEXT fields. I'll have to read up on it.

Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text around your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not made in
Word itself)?


I only recently discovered frames which is why I asked the question since
they add complexity, and yes I am running text around the frames and their
captions. The illustrations are mostly photographs. I insert them into Word
using Insert/picture/from file. Is that the best way to do it?

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Robert M. Franz (RMF)" wrote in message
...
Hello Jeff

Jeff wrote:
I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking
for a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document
as a tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was
writing in WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard
that master documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in
Word. Is that true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents.
Can they be avoided?


To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files. These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the chapters
in this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with
the heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm
considering doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one
basket that might get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry
about that?


You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields, then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.


Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text around your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not made in
Word itself)?

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word





  #6   Report Post  
Jeff
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thanks for replying Anne.

1. Yes, Master/Subs in Word still sucks.
2. Don't worry about corruption of your one document. Instead, why don't
you
turn on creating a backup file under Tools--Options, Save tab?


I have that, but my impression is that will avoid losing unsaved data, but
not file corruption.

3. How big is your document? When I was writing my book, I used the
document
map feature to move around 'cause inevitably, I kept inserting new pieces
of
info that belonged here and there.


Size will be about 400 book text pages, but with a lot of images in
addition. I have to learn about the document map feature. Did not know
about it.

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Anne Troy" wrote in message
news:c8738$42b870c4$466eb880$18092@allthenewsgroup s.com...
1. Yes, Master/Subs in Word still sucks.
2. Don't worry about corruption of your one document. Instead, why don't
you
turn on creating a backup file under Tools--Options, Save tab?
3. How big is your document? When I was writing my book, I used the
document
map feature to move around 'cause inevitably, I kept inserting new pieces
of
info that belonged here and there.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com


"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi (using Word 2002 in XP).

I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking

for
a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document as a
tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was writing in
WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard that master
documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in Word. Is that
true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents. Can they be
avoided?

Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the chapters

in
this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with the
heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm considering
doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket that
might
get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry about that?

This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.

Thanks for any suggestions and ideas.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam









  #7   Report Post  
Jeff
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hi Daiya.

Thanks for all the urls. I'll look them up.

I already do frequent backups, so my concern is not about losing the entire
file, but opening the file and finding the images corrupted, replaced by red
Xs or something like that. That would be very hard to recover from.

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
.. .
See here, for one:
Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=148

IncludeText Fields might be an option, though this is a simplistic intro
to
them:
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm

Steve Hudson [Word Heretic] on how to make Master Documents work safely:
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ma...dhomepage.html

More on why MDs are unreliable:

Why Master Documents corrupt:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...ocsCorrupt.htm

How to recover a Master Document:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...MasterDocs.htm

You are not wrong to worry about putting all eggs in one basket, but the
answer to that is backup frequently--turn on the Make BackUp option as
Anne
said, but also backup frequently yourself.

I am not sure what difference frames may make to any of these options.
Theoretically, none, I think.


On 6/21/05 11:49 AM, "Jeff" wrote:

Hi (using Word 2002 in XP).

I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking
for
a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document as a
tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was writing in
WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard that master
documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in Word. Is that
true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents. Can they be
avoided?

Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the chapters
in
this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with the
heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm considering
doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket that
might
get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry about that?

This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.

Thanks for any suggestions and ideas.


--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/




  #8   Report Post  
Charles Kenyon
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Make sure that your backups are separate and don't overwrite each other. A
file may corrupt before you realize that it is.
--
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.

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi Daiya.

Thanks for all the urls. I'll look them up.

I already do frequent backups, so my concern is not about losing the
entire
file, but opening the file and finding the images corrupted, replaced by
red
Xs or something like that. That would be very hard to recover from.

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
.. .
See here, for one:
Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=148

IncludeText Fields might be an option, though this is a simplistic intro
to
them:
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm

Steve Hudson [Word Heretic] on how to make Master Documents work safely:
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ma...dhomepage.html

More on why MDs are unreliable:

Why Master Documents corrupt:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...ocsCorrupt.htm

How to recover a Master Document:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...MasterDocs.htm

You are not wrong to worry about putting all eggs in one basket, but the
answer to that is backup frequently--turn on the Make BackUp option as
Anne
said, but also backup frequently yourself.

I am not sure what difference frames may make to any of these options.
Theoretically, none, I think.


On 6/21/05 11:49 AM, "Jeff" wrote:

Hi (using Word 2002 in XP).

I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various
times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a
separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking
for
a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document as
a
tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was writing
in
WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard that master
documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in Word. Is that
true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents. Can they be
avoided?

Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the
chapters
in
this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with
the
heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm considering
doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket that
might
get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry about that?

This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference
in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.

Thanks for any suggestions and ideas.


--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/






  #9   Report Post  
Anne Troy
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hi, Jeff. Some things you can do to AVOID corruption:
1. If you use drawing objects, please, please, please do it in PowerPoint
and group them, then copy and paste as a picture into your Word doc. If you
lose the image, it's in PPT. Also, corruption OFTEN occurs with documents
that contain multiple drawn objects with multiple parts.
2. Make sure your pictures are compressed and resized BEFORE you insert them
into Word. A good photo shouldn't need to be more than 100KB. You can use
www.Irfanview.com as a free graphic compression software.
3. Do not crop or resize pictures in Word. When you crop, you're literally
carrying a copy of the original size AND the cropped size! Double-dipping!
4. Get yourself a GMail account (I've got invites if you need one). Then,
email a copy of the document to yourself when you're done working on it.
Heck...I bet somebody could get you a macro that'll do it for you
automatically when you close your document.
5. Never save it to a lesser version--not an important doc like this. It
tends to bloat the doc.
6. Don't be afraid of a document that's 10MB, though even a 400+ Word 2003
document of ONLY text isn't quite 2MB.
7. Unless your "desktop publishing" it now, don't put the pictures in until
you're done writing.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com



"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi Robert

To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is

whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files. These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Yes they all were and will be written using the same template and styles.

You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields, then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


There will be about 400 pages (book pages) plus a great many images. Never
heard of INCLUDETEXT fields. I'll have to read up on it.

Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question

I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text around

your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not made

in
Word itself)?


I only recently discovered frames which is why I asked the question since
they add complexity, and yes I am running text around the frames and their
captions. The illustrations are mostly photographs. I insert them into

Word
using Insert/picture/from file. Is that the best way to do it?

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Robert M. Franz (RMF)" wrote in message
...
Hello Jeff

Jeff wrote:
I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so

I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various

times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a

separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking
for a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master

document
as a tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was
writing in WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard
that master documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in
Word. Is that true? What kind of problems occur with Master

documents.
Can they be avoided?


To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is

whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files. These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the

chapters
in this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file

with
the heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm
considering doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one
basket that might get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to

worry
about that?


You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields, then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference

in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.


Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question

I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text around

your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not made

in
Word itself)?

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word





  #10   Report Post  
Daiya Mitchell
 
Posts: n/a
Default

It's my understanding that the Red X is often a display problem but doesn't
necessarily mean the images have been corrupted, but that's just some small
experience, and on the Mac.

Like Anne says, don't do any photo editing in Word, in which case you should
have the original image files somewhere, no? Making corrupted images an
exceedingly painful and tedious situation, but not irrecoverable.

Re Doc Map, here's some more links:

How it works:
http://shaunakelly.com/word/documentmap/index.html

A couple caveats that *should* be irrelevant to you, using Word 2002:
http://daiya.mvps.org/docmap.htm

Another good way to work with long documents, especially if you decide to
rearrange text, is Outline View:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm
(though rearranging across IncludeText fields could get ugly)


On 6/21/05 7:15 PM, "Jeff" wrote:

Hi Daiya.

Thanks for all the urls. I'll look them up.

I already do frequent backups, so my concern is not about losing the entire
file, but opening the file and finding the images corrupted, replaced by red
Xs or something like that. That would be very hard to recover from.

Thanks.


--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/



  #11   Report Post  
Jeff
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Make sure that your backups are separate and don't overwrite each other. A
file may corrupt before you realize that it is.


Now I am paranoid all over again grin.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Make sure that your backups are separate and don't overwrite each other. A
file may corrupt before you realize that it is.
--
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.

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi Daiya.

Thanks for all the urls. I'll look them up.

I already do frequent backups, so my concern is not about losing the
entire
file, but opening the file and finding the images corrupted, replaced by
red
Xs or something like that. That would be very hard to recover from.

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
.. .
See here, for one:
Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=148

IncludeText Fields might be an option, though this is a simplistic intro
to
them:
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm

Steve Hudson [Word Heretic] on how to make Master Documents work safely:
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ma...dhomepage.html

More on why MDs are unreliable:

Why Master Documents corrupt:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...ocsCorrupt.htm

How to recover a Master Document:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Genera...MasterDocs.htm

You are not wrong to worry about putting all eggs in one basket, but the
answer to that is backup frequently--turn on the Make BackUp option as
Anne
said, but also backup frequently yourself.

I am not sure what difference frames may make to any of these options.
Theoretically, none, I think.


On 6/21/05 11:49 AM, "Jeff" wrote:

Hi (using Word 2002 in XP).

I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so
I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various
times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a
separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am looking
for
a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master document as
a
tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was writing
in
WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I heard that
master
documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in Word. Is
that
true? What kind of problems occur with Master documents. Can they be
avoided?

Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the
chapters
in
this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file with
the
heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm
considering
doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one basket that
might
get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to worry about that?

This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference
in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.

Thanks for any suggestions and ideas.

--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/








  #12   Report Post  
Jeff
 
Posts: n/a
Default

The original images are all elsewhere and I never do anything with them in
Word except reduce them to fit (not cropping, but using the corner anchors)
and removing the default borders from the frames. The reason I insert them
in Word now is because I have reference links (not sure of the exact term
for it) in the text to their figure numbers.

Good to know about the red X.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
.. .
It's my understanding that the Red X is often a display problem but
doesn't
necessarily mean the images have been corrupted, but that's just some
small
experience, and on the Mac.

Like Anne says, don't do any photo editing in Word, in which case you
should
have the original image files somewhere, no? Making corrupted images an
exceedingly painful and tedious situation, but not irrecoverable.

Re Doc Map, here's some more links:

How it works:
http://shaunakelly.com/word/documentmap/index.html

A couple caveats that *should* be irrelevant to you, using Word 2002:
http://daiya.mvps.org/docmap.htm

Another good way to work with long documents, especially if you decide to
rearrange text, is Outline View:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm
(though rearranging across IncludeText fields could get ugly)


On 6/21/05 7:15 PM, "Jeff" wrote:

Hi Daiya.

Thanks for all the urls. I'll look them up.

I already do frequent backups, so my concern is not about losing the
entire
file, but opening the file and finding the images corrupted, replaced by
red
Xs or something like that. That would be very hard to recover from.

Thanks.


--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/



  #13   Report Post  
Jeff
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Great tips. Thanks.

1. If you use drawing objects, please, please, please do it in PowerPoint
and group them, then copy and paste as a picture into your Word doc.


I actually work on the images in Paint Shop Pro and then transfer them. Do
you mention PSP just as an example or because it has a particular intrinsic
value? They are not drawings but mostly scanned images or photos.

5. Never save it to a lesser version--not an important doc like this. It
tends to bloat the doc.


What does this mean?

7. Unless your "desktop publishing" it now, don't put the pictures in
until
you're done writing.


Unfortunately that does not work well for me.

Thank you.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Anne Troy" wrote in message
news:33b81$42b90738$466eb880$10575@allthenewsgroup s.com...
Hi, Jeff. Some things you can do to AVOID corruption:
1. If you use drawing objects, please, please, please do it in PowerPoint
and group them, then copy and paste as a picture into your Word doc. If
you
lose the image, it's in PPT. Also, corruption OFTEN occurs with documents
that contain multiple drawn objects with multiple parts.
2. Make sure your pictures are compressed and resized BEFORE you insert
them
into Word. A good photo shouldn't need to be more than 100KB. You can use
www.Irfanview.com as a free graphic compression software.
3. Do not crop or resize pictures in Word. When you crop, you're literally
carrying a copy of the original size AND the cropped size! Double-dipping!
4. Get yourself a GMail account (I've got invites if you need one). Then,
email a copy of the document to yourself when you're done working on it.
Heck...I bet somebody could get you a macro that'll do it for you
automatically when you close your document.
5. Never save it to a lesser version--not an important doc like this. It
tends to bloat the doc.
6. Don't be afraid of a document that's 10MB, though even a 400+ Word 2003
document of ONLY text isn't quite 2MB.
7. Unless your "desktop publishing" it now, don't put the pictures in
until
you're done writing.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com



"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi Robert

To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is

whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files. These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Yes they all were and will be written using the same template and styles.

You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters
into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields, then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


There will be about 400 pages (book pages) plus a great many images.
Never
heard of INCLUDETEXT fields. I'll have to read up on it.

Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question

I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text around

your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not made

in
Word itself)?


I only recently discovered frames which is why I asked the question since
they add complexity, and yes I am running text around the frames and
their
captions. The illustrations are mostly photographs. I insert them into

Word
using Insert/picture/from file. Is that the best way to do it?

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Robert M. Franz (RMF)" wrote in message
...
Hello Jeff

Jeff wrote:
I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so

I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various

times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a

separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am
looking
for a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master

document
as a tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was
writing in WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I
heard
that master documents have problems and a great risk of corruption in
Word. Is that true? What kind of problems occur with Master

documents.
Can they be avoided?

To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is

whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files. These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the

chapters
in this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file

with
the heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm
considering doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one
basket that might get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to

worry
about that?

You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters
into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields, then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a difference

in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the document.

Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question

I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text around

your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not made

in
Word itself)?

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word








  #14   Report Post  
Robert M. Franz (RMF)
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hi Jeff

Jeff wrote:
I only recently discovered frames which is why I asked the question since
they add complexity, and yes I am running text around the frames and their
captions. The illustrations are mostly photographs. I insert them into Word
using Insert/picture/from file. Is that the best way to do it?


OK, if you want text flowing around, you need to use either a table cell
or a frame. A textbox won't do, beceause Word has a habit of not
"finding" the captions in there (which makes your table of figures
rather useless! :-)).

A frame might not lend as many options concerning "flow-around", but it
has another benefit that tables don't offer: you can make a frame part
of a style, say, the Caption style. Type your caption text, apply the
style (which frames it and positions the frame in the predefined way),
then, with your cursor at the start of the frame, insert (from file) the
picture.

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word
  #15   Report Post  
Charles Kenyon
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Resizing also bloats your files, I believe.
--
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.

"Jeff" wrote in message
erio.net...
The original images are all elsewhere and I never do anything with them in
Word except reduce them to fit (not cropping, but using the corner
anchors) and removing the default borders from the frames. The reason I
insert them in Word now is because I have reference links (not sure of the
exact term for it) in the text to their figure numbers.

Good to know about the red X.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
.. .
It's my understanding that the Red X is often a display problem but
doesn't
necessarily mean the images have been corrupted, but that's just some
small
experience, and on the Mac.

Like Anne says, don't do any photo editing in Word, in which case you
should
have the original image files somewhere, no? Making corrupted images an
exceedingly painful and tedious situation, but not irrecoverable.

Re Doc Map, here's some more links:

How it works:
http://shaunakelly.com/word/documentmap/index.html

A couple caveats that *should* be irrelevant to you, using Word 2002:
http://daiya.mvps.org/docmap.htm

Another good way to work with long documents, especially if you decide to
rearrange text, is Outline View:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm
(though rearranging across IncludeText fields could get ugly)


On 6/21/05 7:15 PM, "Jeff" wrote:

Hi Daiya.

Thanks for all the urls. I'll look them up.

I already do frequent backups, so my concern is not about losing the
entire
file, but opening the file and finding the images corrupted, replaced by
red
Xs or something like that. That would be very hard to recover from.

Thanks.


--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/







  #16   Report Post  
Anne Troy
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hee hee, Jeff...

1. I mentioned PPT just because not everybody has graphics apps. If you're
using PSP, it's fine. You're exporting to JPG first, though, right?

5. There's options to save to, for instance, Word 97. When you do this, Word
can actually save BOTH versions, which bloats the file size. You're probably
not doing it.

7. I hear you. Me either. I am actually in the processing of writing an
eBook for DTP in Word.

Good luck, okay?

*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com


"Jeff" wrote in message
. verio.net...
Great tips. Thanks.

1. If you use drawing objects, please, please, please do it in

PowerPoint
and group them, then copy and paste as a picture into your Word doc.


I actually work on the images in Paint Shop Pro and then transfer them. Do
you mention PSP just as an example or because it has a particular

intrinsic
value? They are not drawings but mostly scanned images or photos.

5. Never save it to a lesser version--not an important doc like this. It
tends to bloat the doc.


What does this mean?

7. Unless your "desktop publishing" it now, don't put the pictures in
until
you're done writing.


Unfortunately that does not work well for me.

Thank you.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Anne Troy" wrote in message
news:33b81$42b90738$466eb880$10575@allthenewsgroup s.com...
Hi, Jeff. Some things you can do to AVOID corruption:
1. If you use drawing objects, please, please, please do it in

PowerPoint
and group them, then copy and paste as a picture into your Word doc. If
you
lose the image, it's in PPT. Also, corruption OFTEN occurs with

documents
that contain multiple drawn objects with multiple parts.
2. Make sure your pictures are compressed and resized BEFORE you insert
them
into Word. A good photo shouldn't need to be more than 100KB. You can

use
www.Irfanview.com as a free graphic compression software.
3. Do not crop or resize pictures in Word. When you crop, you're

literally
carrying a copy of the original size AND the cropped size!

Double-dipping!
4. Get yourself a GMail account (I've got invites if you need one).

Then,
email a copy of the document to yourself when you're done working on it.
Heck...I bet somebody could get you a macro that'll do it for you
automatically when you close your document.
5. Never save it to a lesser version--not an important doc like this. It
tends to bloat the doc.
6. Don't be afraid of a document that's 10MB, though even a 400+ Word

2003
document of ONLY text isn't quite 2MB.
7. Unless your "desktop publishing" it now, don't put the pictures in
until
you're done writing.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com



"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi Robert

To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is

whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same

template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files. These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)

Yes they all were and will be written using the same template and

styles.

You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters
into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields,

then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?

There will be about 400 pages (book pages) plus a great many images.
Never
heard of INCLUDETEXT fields. I'll have to read up on it.

Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question

I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text around

your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking

about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not

made
in
Word itself)?

I only recently discovered frames which is why I asked the question

since
they add complexity, and yes I am running text around the frames and
their
captions. The illustrations are mostly photographs. I insert them into

Word
using Insert/picture/from file. Is that the best way to do it?

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Robert M. Franz (RMF)" wrote in message
...
Hello Jeff

Jeff wrote:
I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book, so

I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various

times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a

separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am
looking
for a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master

document
as a tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was
writing in WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I
heard
that master documents have problems and a great risk of corruption

in
Word. Is that true? What kind of problems occur with Master

documents.
Can they be avoided?

To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is

whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same

template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files. These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the

chapters
in this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file

with
the heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm
considering doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in one
basket that might get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to

worry
about that?

You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters
into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields,

then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now. Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a

difference
in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the

document.

Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The question

I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text around

your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking

about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not

made
in
Word itself)?

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word









  #17   Report Post  
Jeff
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thank you very much Anne. Its all very helpful.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Anne Troy" wrote in message
news:9af69$42b98fc7$466eb880$14187@allthenewsgroup s.com...
Hee hee, Jeff...

1. I mentioned PPT just because not everybody has graphics apps. If you're
using PSP, it's fine. You're exporting to JPG first, though, right?

5. There's options to save to, for instance, Word 97. When you do this,
Word
can actually save BOTH versions, which bloats the file size. You're
probably
not doing it.

7. I hear you. Me either. I am actually in the processing of writing an
eBook for DTP in Word.

Good luck, okay?

*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com


"Jeff" wrote in message
. verio.net...
Great tips. Thanks.

1. If you use drawing objects, please, please, please do it in

PowerPoint
and group them, then copy and paste as a picture into your Word doc.


I actually work on the images in Paint Shop Pro and then transfer them.
Do
you mention PSP just as an example or because it has a particular

intrinsic
value? They are not drawings but mostly scanned images or photos.

5. Never save it to a lesser version--not an important doc like this.
It
tends to bloat the doc.


What does this mean?

7. Unless your "desktop publishing" it now, don't put the pictures in
until
you're done writing.


Unfortunately that does not work well for me.

Thank you.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Anne Troy" wrote in message
news:33b81$42b90738$466eb880$10575@allthenewsgroup s.com...
Hi, Jeff. Some things you can do to AVOID corruption:
1. If you use drawing objects, please, please, please do it in

PowerPoint
and group them, then copy and paste as a picture into your Word doc. If
you
lose the image, it's in PPT. Also, corruption OFTEN occurs with

documents
that contain multiple drawn objects with multiple parts.
2. Make sure your pictures are compressed and resized BEFORE you insert
them
into Word. A good photo shouldn't need to be more than 100KB. You can

use
www.Irfanview.com as a free graphic compression software.
3. Do not crop or resize pictures in Word. When you crop, you're

literally
carrying a copy of the original size AND the cropped size!

Double-dipping!
4. Get yourself a GMail account (I've got invites if you need one).

Then,
email a copy of the document to yourself when you're done working on
it.
Heck...I bet somebody could get you a macro that'll do it for you
automatically when you close your document.
5. Never save it to a lesser version--not an important doc like this.
It
tends to bloat the doc.
6. Don't be afraid of a document that's 10MB, though even a 400+ Word

2003
document of ONLY text isn't quite 2MB.
7. Unless your "desktop publishing" it now, don't put the pictures in
until
you're done writing.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com



"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi Robert

To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is
whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same

template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files.
These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)

Yes they all were and will be written using the same template and

styles.

You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters
into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields,

then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now.
Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?

There will be about 400 pages (book pages) plus a great many images.
Never
heard of INCLUDETEXT fields. I'll have to read up on it.

Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The
question
I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text
around
your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking

about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not

made
in
Word itself)?

I only recently discovered frames which is why I asked the question

since
they add complexity, and yes I am running text around the frames and
their
captions. The illustrations are mostly photographs. I insert them into
Word
using Insert/picture/from file. Is that the best way to do it?

Thanks.

--

Jeff Stevens
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam



"Robert M. Franz (RMF)" wrote in message
...
Hello Jeff

Jeff wrote:
I am writing a book that has many chapters. It is a complex book,
so
I'm
writing a little in one chapter and a little in another at various
times,
adding ideas as they come along. At present each chapter is in a
separate
file, but that has created a great many separate files and I am
looking
for a way to coordinate them. I therefore thought of the Master
document
as a tool to do this. I used to use the Master document when I was
writing in WordPerfect 5.1 and it worked very well for me. But I
heard
that master documents have problems and a great risk of corruption

in
Word. Is that true? What kind of problems occur with Master
documents.
Can they be avoided?

To add to what others have said already: A big question for me is
whether
the individual files you have right now are based on the same

template,
and whether the formatting used is consistent over these files.
These
things need sorting out if not only done so; and before that, even
_thinking_ about a Master Document might corrupt your work! :-)


Any suggestions as to how to maintain a "big picture" of all the
chapters
in this manuscript? I could of course put them all in one huge file
with
the heading chapters creating a master list in the TOC - and I'm
considering doing that - but the idea of putting all the eggs in
one
basket that might get corrupted somehow bothers me. Am I wrong to
worry
about that?

You could easily test the big file scenario: Bring all the chapters
into
one file via INCLUDETEXT fields. Save the file with active fields,

then
(in a copy), unlink all the fields. You have one big file now.
Fiddle
around with it a bit, how many pages are there? How big (filesize)?


This manuscript has a lot of illustrations (if that makes a

difference
in
the responses) and I use frames to position them within the

document.

Like Daiya, I don't see much problem with frames per se. The
question
I'd
raise here is what you use them for: Are you running body text
around
your
frames/illustrations? What kind of illustrations are we talking

about,
btw, and how were they inserted into Word (presuming they were not

made
in
Word itself)?

Greetinx
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word











  #19   Report Post  
Chip Orange
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to routinely be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature, and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.



  #20   Report Post  
Charles Kenyon
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods for using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to routinely be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature, and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.







  #21   Report Post  
Chip Orange
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thanks for the suggestion. I will go read the material you referenced.

What we found yesterday, when we tried IncludeText, was that it immediately
had formatting issues when you did an "update field" in the "master". In
particular, it translated invisible style separators into visible paragraph
marks, and so, changed the line break and pagination where they were used in
the subdoc.

Are there known issues with IncludeText like this? Are style separators so
unusual that if we eliminated their use, we could count on IncludeText
otherwise working ok?

Thanks.


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods for

using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to routinely

be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.







  #22   Report Post  
Daiya Mitchell
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Interesting....

IncludeText fields have a little weirdness with filepaths, and fields within
fields:
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm#FilePaths
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.ht...dsWithinFields

But the MVPs just helped me put together this article, and no one mentioned
your problem, so thanks much, that is a biggie for long documents. What
version of Word was that?

Alternatively, here is Charles' other recommendation:
Steve Hudson [Word Heretic] on how to make Master Documents work safely:
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ma...dhomepage.html

DM

On 8/3/05 7:36 AM, "Chip Orange" wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion. I will go read the material you referenced.

What we found yesterday, when we tried IncludeText, was that it immediately
had formatting issues when you did an "update field" in the "master". In
particular, it translated invisible style separators into visible paragraph
marks, and so, changed the line break and pagination where they were used in
the subdoc.

Are there known issues with IncludeText like this? Are style separators so
unusual that if we eliminated their use, we could count on IncludeText
otherwise working ok?

Thanks.


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods for

using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to routinely

be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.








--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

  #23   Report Post  
Chip Orange
 
Posts: n/a
Default

We're using Word XP.

We reviewed Steve's article, but sense we have such a large number of
relatively inexperienced word processors (usually engineers, accountants,
analysts, etc.), who wish to use this, we think it unlikely that all rules
could be followed all the time.

Thanks for the reports on the other IncludeText issues.

Chip


"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
.. .
Interesting....

IncludeText fields have a little weirdness with filepaths, and fields

within
fields:
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm#FilePaths
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.ht...dsWithinFields

But the MVPs just helped me put together this article, and no one

mentioned
your problem, so thanks much, that is a biggie for long documents. What
version of Word was that?

Alternatively, here is Charles' other recommendation:
Steve Hudson [Word Heretic] on how to make Master Documents work safely:
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ma...dhomepage.html

DM

On 8/3/05 7:36 AM, "Chip Orange" wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion. I will go read the material you referenced.

What we found yesterday, when we tried IncludeText, was that it

immediately
had formatting issues when you did an "update field" in the "master".

In
particular, it translated invisible style separators into visible

paragraph
marks, and so, changed the line break and pagination where they were

used in
the subdoc.

Are there known issues with IncludeText like this? Are style separators

so
unusual that if we eliminated their use, we could count on IncludeText
otherwise working ok?

Thanks.


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods for

using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce

following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many

authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to

routinely
be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review

it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.








--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ:

http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/



  #24   Report Post  
Charles Kenyon
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I haven't used style separators so hadn't bumped into this.

Version of Word?

Consistent for all users?


--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the suggestion. I will go read the material you referenced.

What we found yesterday, when we tried IncludeText, was that it
immediately
had formatting issues when you did an "update field" in the "master". In
particular, it translated invisible style separators into visible
paragraph
marks, and so, changed the line break and pagination where they were used
in
the subdoc.

Are there known issues with IncludeText like this? Are style separators
so
unusual that if we eliminated their use, we could count on IncludeText
otherwise working ok?

Thanks.


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods for

using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce
following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to routinely

be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.









  #25   Report Post  
Jonathan West
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hi Chip,

You might want to take a look at this article

Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=148

--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to routinely be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature, and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.






  #26   Report Post  
Chip Orange
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thanks ... hmmm ... I like this idea the best so far. I'll suggest it,
along with the necessary changes to our internal policies and procedures to
allow for it (for instance, we currently have a requirement that the
finished product be a single document).

Thanks again,

Chip


"Jonathan West" wrote in message
...
Hi Chip,

You might want to take a look at this article

Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=148

--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to routinely

be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.






  #27   Report Post  
Chip Orange
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Word version is 2002; can't say about consistancy as we are just now trying
out IncludeText fields and are in a bit of a panic here.

The first attempt/use looks ok, it's only the update of the field that shows
up the problem.

We have found a similar issue with style separators if text has its format
cleared (before applying new styles). We have a macro that does this, then
copies and pastes the text, then applies new formatting in the new document.
Somewhere along the way, the style separators become separate paragraph
marks.

I suspect the operation which clears the formatting.

Chip


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
I haven't used style separators so hadn't bumped into this.

Version of Word?

Consistent for all users?


--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the suggestion. I will go read the material you referenced.

What we found yesterday, when we tried IncludeText, was that it
immediately
had formatting issues when you did an "update field" in the "master".

In
particular, it translated invisible style separators into visible
paragraph
marks, and so, changed the line break and pagination where they were

used
in
the subdoc.

Are there known issues with IncludeText like this? Are style separators
so
unusual that if we eliminated their use, we could count on IncludeText
otherwise working ok?

Thanks.


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods for

using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce
following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many

authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to

routinely
be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review

it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we

have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on

ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.











  #28   Report Post  
Chip Orange
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I should clarify this by saying the problem I reported here only occurs if
the \* MergeFormat switch is used in the IncludeText field. If not, then we
only have the problems Daiya mentions in her article to deal with!

Chip


"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the suggestion. I will go read the material you referenced.

What we found yesterday, when we tried IncludeText, was that it

immediately
had formatting issues when you did an "update field" in the "master". In
particular, it translated invisible style separators into visible

paragraph
marks, and so, changed the line break and pagination where they were used

in
the subdoc.

Are there known issues with IncludeText like this? Are style separators

so
unusual that if we eliminated their use, we could count on IncludeText
otherwise working ok?

Thanks.


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods for

using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce

following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many

authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to

routinely
be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review

it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.









  #29   Report Post  
Charles Kenyon
 
Posts: n/a
Default

The MergeFormat switch should be removed in most cases.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
I should clarify this by saying the problem I reported here only occurs if
the \* MergeFormat switch is used in the IncludeText field. If not, then
we
only have the problems Daiya mentions in her article to deal with!

Chip


"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the suggestion. I will go read the material you referenced.

What we found yesterday, when we tried IncludeText, was that it

immediately
had formatting issues when you did an "update field" in the "master". In
particular, it translated invisible style separators into visible

paragraph
marks, and so, changed the line break and pagination where they were used

in
the subdoc.

Are there known issues with IncludeText like this? Are style separators

so
unusual that if we eliminated their use, we could count on IncludeText
otherwise working ok?

Thanks.


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods for

using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce

following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many

authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to

routinely
be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review

it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we
have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on
ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.











  #30   Report Post  
Chip Orange
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Thanks. It was accidentally added as we chose the "insert field" menu
choice the first time we experimented with this idea, and that adds it by
default (where-as Insert File and selecting "as link" does not).

Now, if we put all the files in the same dir, and add a little macro
support, the only problem I am worried about, and need to study further, is
Daiya's report of "fields within fields", which we do use (placing a field
result inside of a TC field).

We may go back to using this for our multi-person, multi-file project
instead of Jonathan's RD approach, as this does provide us with a single
large document at the end (once all IncludeText fields have been unlinked),
and that ends up being important to us.

Thanks for help from all.

Chip


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
The MergeFormat switch should be removed in most cases.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
I should clarify this by saying the problem I reported here only occurs

if
the \* MergeFormat switch is used in the IncludeText field. If not,

then
we
only have the problems Daiya mentions in her article to deal with!

Chip


"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the suggestion. I will go read the material you referenced.

What we found yesterday, when we tried IncludeText, was that it

immediately
had formatting issues when you did an "update field" in the "master".

In
particular, it translated invisible style separators into visible

paragraph
marks, and so, changed the line break and pagination where they were

used
in
the subdoc.

Are there known issues with IncludeText like this? Are style

separators
so
unusual that if we eliminated their use, we could count on IncludeText
otherwise working ok?

Thanks.


"Charles Kenyon" wrote in
message ...
Use a common template and you can include parts that are in separate
documents using IncludeText fields. Look at Steve Hudson's methods

for
using
Master Documents and decide whether you would be able to enforce

following
them.
--
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.

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many

authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to

routinely
be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review

it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc

feature,
and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we
have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on
ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.















  #31   Report Post  
Daiya Mitchell
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On 8/5/05 2:01 PM, "Chip Orange" wrote:

Thanks. It was accidentally added as we chose the "insert field" menu
choice the first time we experimented with this idea, and that adds it by
default (where-as Insert File and selecting "as link" does not).


Thanks very much for that tip--I'll add that note. That's very valuable to
know, and glad you chased down the cause of the style separator problem.

(PS--I'm going to be off the groups and probably unable to follow the rest
of this thread, but if you find anything else you think ought to be in the
article, or any errors, feel free to drop me a note offgroup to ensure it
doesn't get lost--the article was the collected comments of many but not
produced in the midst of extensive testing as you seem to be doing. I
assume you can see my address to un-spam-proof it. Otherwise, I'll check the
thread via google in a few weeks anyhow, assuming I remember.)

Daiya



  #32   Report Post  
John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hi Chip:

Word MVP Steve Hudson has a delightful article here that explains how to use
Master Documents:
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ma...masterdocs.doc

The article is long and technically intense. That's because it needs to be.
If you follow Steve's advice exactly, you will successfully use master
documents. If you give the article to your users, and expect them to use
it, you will spend the rest of your career fixing their result :-) Using
master documents in a production environment is nearly as much work as "not"
using them :-)

To avoid this, I use separate component documents and an "assembler" macro.

How's your VBA? If it's functional, I can send you a template with macros
that automatically assembles source documents into a single document for
printing and review.

I used it to compile 500 source documents into a 2,500-page RFP. You would
need to customise it to your purposes.

Email me direct if you want it.

Cheers


On 5/8/05 12:13 AM, in article , "Chip
Orange" wrote:

Thanks ... hmmm ... I like this idea the best so far. I'll suggest it,
along with the necessary changes to our internal policies and procedures to
allow for it (for instance, we currently have a requirement that the
finished product be a single document).

Thanks again,

Chip


"Jonathan West" wrote in message
...
Hi Chip,

You might want to take a look at this article

Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=148

--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

"Chip Orange" wrote in message
...
Since we're talking about master doc feature here, I'd like to ask:

We have a need to create a large doc collaboratively, with many authors
working on sub doc portions concurrently. We need someone to routinely

be
able to put the entire doc together, print it, and otherwise review it.

We are being (the IT shop) asked repeatedly about master doc feature,

and
are passing on the advice we read here that it's not safe, but we have
little to offer in its place except copy and paste (our formatting
requirements are rigid).

Any suggestions on how we should best accomplish this?

Thanks.

Chip



p.s.

We did have a short try with includetext fields, and found on ocasions
they
too caused problems with improper formatting of the final doc.







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John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

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