Microsoft Word formatting--combining files

I have six Microsoft Word documents. Each is formatted with styles and numbered lists, restarting for each section.

I tried to combine these into a single document, inserting section breaks between each sub-document, but the numbering got completely dropped from some lists, or counted continuously throughout the document for other lists, and styles went completely wrong–fonts changed, bold and italics got added or dropped out, etc.

Is there an easy way to combine six documents into a single document such that each section of the combined document will just continue to look the same as it did when it was its own separate document? Or do I have to go through the arduous process of reformatting each section by hand?

Thanks!

Have been using Word for a long time (since version 1.1, in those long-ago DOS days). My second biggest complaint with Word-for-Windows is its bugginess in handling numbering. Long story short, if there’s a solution, I haven’t found it. The problem, as you may have noted, is that the Restart Numbering command is supported only for direct formatting, i.e., is not available on the template. This is a bug which has persisted through every upgrade, so I have to assume MS simply can’t figure out a fix.

Forgot to mention. The official answer to your question is supposed to be the Master Document function. In my experience, it is precisely on the point of numbering that MD breaks down the worst. Bottom line: If you tried to use MD to combine your six documents, you would get exactly the same errors as you are now getting trying to copy them into a new document. And would be buying into a whole 'nuther set of headaches besides.

I’m a legal word processor and have a lot of experience with MSWord. I can attest that there is probably nothing to be done to make Word documents accept different numbering schemes. It tends to corrupt the documents. So does the automatic bulleted lists. So do those confounded continuous section breaks. MSWord is so buggy in so many ways that I am constantly suprised that users put up with it, but I guess it’s the most versatile there is even if it may not be the best.

I’ve never worked with Master documents, however, I thought that the sub-document function kept documents as separate entities and only shows them on screen as a single document. However, PBear says no, so I have to defer to that answer.

In short, your best bet is to start fresh by using copy, paste special, unformatted text into a new container. Try to conform your numbering scheme and use manual numbering on paragraph styles that are not used consistently throughout or used only a couple times (not automatic list numbers because they can cause corruption also).

If you have one or two short documents with diverse numbering schemes, keep the numbering in those documents manual.

Whoa - don’t use the Master Documents feature. Here there be dragons. Really. I’m a technical writer by profession, and everything I’ve read says to stay far, far away.

I doubt you’ll be able to do this without manual re-work. I know that sucks, and I’m sorry, but them’s the breaks.

Numbering has been broken for ages. Some tech writers get around it by using SEQ fields and setting up autocorrect entries and styles to manage their numbered lists. It’s a little bit of a hassle to set up, but once it’s done, it’s pretty bulletproof. The downside is that it requires more knowledge about Word than a lot of users have, which could be an issue if you need to pass off the doc to someone else for maintenance. But it works, really well.

Here’s a good reference on using SEQ fields:

http://www.knopf.com/tips/autonumber.html

In that, ignore the RoboHelp stuff (unless, of course, you’re creating help files). That article also contains information about the gotchas and limitations of using this methods.

Searching Google for “Word SEQ numbering” also will get you a bunch of hits, plus a very valuable Word MVPS site that probably contains more than you ever wanted to know about Word - there’s some stuff in there about section breaks and things not behaving as expected with them that might be helpful.

Luck to you.

To clarify, Cillasi’s understanding is correct, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. The problem is that when MD compiles its “virtual” document from the sub-documents, it acts as if you were copying them into a new file, which among other thngs mucks up any numbering schemes. All I was trying to say, then, is that, although it’s supposed to, MD would not solve the OP’s problem.

For what it’s worth, I use MD for exactly one thing. I have a bookmark-based index to a long document scattered across 25 files. MD is the only way to compile that index. Doing so requires about half-a-dozen kludges, but it works. The document itself I print from the source files (sub-docs) and maintain continuous pagination manually.