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
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"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.







--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

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