[Midsomer]

2 of us are documenting some program code and want to share the same
Word doc that contains all the documentaion about the program. Word's
Combine Documents sounds good except that a new paragraph from each of
us in the same section gets merged into one. I want this feature to
add the new paras from each of us one after the other in the final
version.

The way that it displays other edited parts of each source document is
fine and the changes can be easily accepted into the original as in
'Tracked Changes'.

How can this be done?

[Cindy M.]

Hi Midsomer,

I'm guessing you'll have to actually type something into that "empty
paragraph"...

"Professional" documents aren't supposed to contain "empty paragraphs".
Spacing should ideally be done by applying "Space before" or "Space
after" to styles. So some effort is made by Word to reduce "stray"
paragraphs. And, when it's doing a comparison (as it does with
"Combine") it will interpret two "empty" paragraphs as being the same
thing. No difference - so they won't be retained.

2 of us are documenting some program code and want to share the same
Word doc that contains all the documentaion about the program. Word's
Combine Documents sounds good except that a new paragraph from each of
us in the same section gets merged into one. I want this feature to
add the new paras from each of us one after the other in the final
version.

The way that it displays other edited parts of each source document is
fine and the changes can be easily accepted into the original as in
'Tracked Changes'.

How can this be done?


Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Midsomer]

Hi Cindy

Thanks for your reply. We don't have empty paragraphs and always use
Space Before and/or Space After. The problem is in Combining 2
documents: Word 2007 Review tab Compare dropdown Combine... As
the 2 documents merge, text from a new paragraph is (badly) merged
with text from the other document IF the 2 new paragraphs are in the
same location in each document.

We have got round the problem by inserting coloured headings: I type
new paragraphs under one heading and my colleague adds his new
paragraphs under his heading.

What I believe is required is a database document or a document
database where each paragraph is a record... Each user would be
allowed to add or edit paragraphs which they would 'own'. If 2 users
add paragraphs to their copies of the document then each one is added
as a new 'record' and the document owner can decide if they need to be
moved.

Midsomer