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#1
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What is good alternative to using Master Documents?
I have read the MVPs' warnings about the dangers of master documents. Can
anyone recommend a good alternative to master documents? I have 8 presentation documents that are comprised of multiple "recommendations." Some of the recommendations are the same across all 8 presentation documents and other recommendations may differ by a word or two depending on the audience (banks or credit unions). My original plan was to create subdocuments out of the recommendations and use the appropriate subdocuments to comprise each presentation master document. Now I'm concerned about corruption issues with master documents that may render the whole thing a big mess. My tests using Master Documents have not gone well. Alternatively, I've also wondered if there is a way to use formulas and the mail merge feature to allow me to create If/Then fields so that I could have one presentation file and just update the audience-specific fields by choosing the appropriate code for an audience. For example, if my audience was banks, then a field would read "customer" and if the audience was credit unions, the field would read "member." This way, I could maintain just one document instead of 8. I greatly appreciate any suggestions. I am using MS Word 2002 SP3 and Office XP. |
#2
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What is good alternative to using Master Documents?
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. Otherwise, you might look into Custom Document properties and the DocProperty field. For variations on how you can set one or two properties and vary all sorts of other words depending on what they are, try downloading my gender toolbar template from http://addbalance.com/word/download.htm. -- 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. "JDPeoples" wrote in message ... I have read the MVPs' warnings about the dangers of master documents. Can anyone recommend a good alternative to master documents? I have 8 presentation documents that are comprised of multiple "recommendations." Some of the recommendations are the same across all 8 presentation documents and other recommendations may differ by a word or two depending on the audience (banks or credit unions). My original plan was to create subdocuments out of the recommendations and use the appropriate subdocuments to comprise each presentation master document. Now I'm concerned about corruption issues with master documents that may render the whole thing a big mess. My tests using Master Documents have not gone well. Alternatively, I've also wondered if there is a way to use formulas and the mail merge feature to allow me to create If/Then fields so that I could have one presentation file and just update the audience-specific fields by choosing the appropriate code for an audience. For example, if my audience was banks, then a field would read "customer" and if the audience was credit unions, the field would read "member." This way, I could maintain just one document instead of 8. I greatly appreciate any suggestions. I am using MS Word 2002 SP3 and Office XP. |
#3
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What is good alternative to using Master Documents?
Charles,
Thank you very much for your reply. I think that Custom Document Properties may be the answer I need. I will respond again once I've had a chance to test it further. Thank you again for your time and consideration. Jennifer Peoples "Charles Kenyon" wrote: 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. Otherwise, you might look into Custom Document properties and the DocProperty field. For variations on how you can set one or two properties and vary all sorts of other words depending on what they are, try downloading my gender toolbar template from http://addbalance.com/word/download.htm. -- 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. "JDPeoples" wrote in message ... I have read the MVPs' warnings about the dangers of master documents. Can anyone recommend a good alternative to master documents? I have 8 presentation documents that are comprised of multiple "recommendations." Some of the recommendations are the same across all 8 presentation documents and other recommendations may differ by a word or two depending on the audience (banks or credit unions). My original plan was to create subdocuments out of the recommendations and use the appropriate subdocuments to comprise each presentation master document. Now I'm concerned about corruption issues with master documents that may render the whole thing a big mess. My tests using Master Documents have not gone well. Alternatively, I've also wondered if there is a way to use formulas and the mail merge feature to allow me to create If/Then fields so that I could have one presentation file and just update the audience-specific fields by choosing the appropriate code for an audience. For example, if my audience was banks, then a field would read "customer" and if the audience was credit unions, the field would read "member." This way, I could maintain just one document instead of 8. I greatly appreciate any suggestions. I am using MS Word 2002 SP3 and Office XP. |
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