Section 9.10. Working with a Master Document

9.10. Working with a Master Document

The term master document has a kind of ominous ring to it, and maybe with good reason. This feature has given a lot of people headaches . Here's the idea behind master documents. Suppose you and a team of coworkers are writing a manual for the new Ferrari that's hitting the streets in October. To complete the manual in time, each of you is writing a chapter. Your master document is the complete manual. The chapters are subdocuments, and each chapter is a complete Word document in its own right (Figure 9-29). Word's master document feature acts like a binder that holds the subdocuments and handles some housekeeping chores like page and chapter numbering, tables, and indexes. It sounds great in theory, but it has happened that the Word files get fouled up to the point that they're unreadable.

A few solutions are available. First of all, you may want to figure out another way to work. Perhaps you don't need a master document at all. You can break your work into chapters, and then assemble the chapters into one large Word document when you're all done. If you decide to use a master document, use these safety measures:

• Keep the master document and subdocuments in one folder . It's easier for both you and Word to keep track of the subdocuments when they're all in the same folder.

• Bring sufficient computer power to the project . Computers working on a master document need to have plenty of memory (that is, random access memory, usually referred to as RAM). The minimum RAM required to run Word is 256 megabytes (MB). Try to have at least twice that, 512 MB, if you plan to use master documents.

• Back up early and often . All people working on the project should back up their work regularly. Keep copies of the last two or three versions by saving them with different names . Also, regularly back up the folder with the master document and the subdocuments, keeping the past two or three versions.

9.10.1. Creating a Master Document

To create a master document, you start with a regular Word document, switch to Outline view, and then add subdocuments. For this example, say you've already created a few chapters and want to gather them up in a master document.

First, as recommended earlier, make sure all your soon-to-be-subdocuments are in the same folder. Then, follow these steps:

1. For the master document, create a new file with Office button New Blank Document, and then save it (Office button Save) .

   It's a good idea to give it a name that identifies it as the master document, like MasterA Tale of Two Cities.docx . And, of course, make sure to save it in the same folder as your subdocuments.

   

   Figure 9-29. The master document is in back, and in front of it is the first subdocument. The padlock in the master document shows that the subdocument is currently open , so no one else can make changes to it.

   
   

2. With your master document open, go to View Document Views Outline or press Alt+W, U .

   When you switch to outline view, the Outlining tab appears on the left side of the ribbon. One of the groups in the Outlining tab is the Master Document group .

3. On the Outlining tab, click the Show Document button (Outlining Master Document Show Document) to expand the Master Document group .

   Not many options appear in the Master Document group until you click the Show Document button. Then you see additional buttons for Create, Insert, Unlink, Merge, Split, and Lock Document.

4. Click the Insert button, and then, when the Insert Subdocument dialog box opens, find and double-click a file to insert it into the master document .

   It shouldn't be hard to find your subdocumentsthey're all in one folder, right? Once you find the file, you can double-click it, or you can select it, and then click the Open button.

   If the document you're inserting and the master document have the same paragraph stylesfor example if both have a Heading 1 styleyou'll see a message box that asks if you want to change the style names of the subdocument. If you need a different Heading 1 style in your subdocument, click Yes. Otherwise, you can click No, and all your Heading 1 styles will match.

5. Continue to insert subdocuments into your master document, but try to keep the number of subdocuments to a minimum. Experts recommend having no more than about a dozen subdocuments .

   Each time you insert a subdocument, Word creates section breaks that separate subdocuments from each other.

6. When you're done, you can open one of your subdocuments for editing. Ctrlclick the subdocument's name to open the file .

---

Tip: If you don't have any subdocuments to start with, you can create them as you go. Just create a master document, as described in step 1, and then go to Outlining Master Document Create. You see a box in your master document, similar to the subdocuments in Figure 9-30, except it doesnt have any text. Use the icon in the upper-right corner to open the subdocument. You can open the subdocument you created, add text, and save it with a name.

---

9.10.2. Working with Subdocuments

Each subdocument has a box drawn around it, showing you where one ends and another begins. In the upper-left corner, subdocuments have a small icon that looks like a menu, or at least like a box with some horizontal lines. Double-click this icon to open your subdocument for editing. When a document is open, a small padlock also appears in the upper-left corner of the subdocument, to show that it's locked (Figure 9-29). No one else can edit it while someone has it open.

A master document is just an outline that connects to other documents. When you reopen your master document, it may look like Figure 9-30. To see the contents of the subdocument, instead of the filenames and paths, click the Expand Subdocuments button (Outlining Master Document Expand Subdocuments or Alt+U, X).

9.10.2.1. Locking subdocuments

Locking the subdocuments prevents other people from editing them or changing them in any way. When you open a subdocument, it's automatically locked. If you want to lock a subdocument without opening it, click the subdocument icon to select it, and then choose Outlining Master Document Lock Document.

9.10.2.2. Unlinking subdocuments

Unlinking a subdocument does two things. As you can guess, it breaks the link between the subdocument and the master document. Surprisingly, it inserts the text of the subdocument into the master document before it breaks the link. To unlink a subdocument, go to Outlining Master Document Unlink. The unlink option is available only when the master document is expanded.

9.10.2.3. Deleting subdocuments

To remove a subdocument from the master document, click the subdocument icon, and then press the Delete or Backspace key. The subdocument disappears from the master document, but the subdocument file still exists on your computer.

Figure 9-30. Master documents are files that point to other documents known as subdocuments. This view shows the location of the subdocument files. To view the contents of those files right in the master document, click the Expand Documents button in the Master Document group.

9.10.3. Formatting Your Master Document

You can format the text and the paragraphs in your master document using all the usual suspects . Expand your subdocuments, and then change to Draft or Print Layout view, so that you can see the full result. You can select text and apply bold, italics, or other character formatting. If you want to change the paragraph formatting, like increasing the font size for a heading style, you can modify the style as you would in any Word document. For example, you can right-click the style in the Styles menu (Home Styles), and then choose Modify from the pop-up menu. When you save the changes in your master document, the changes are saved in the subdocument too.

9.10.4. Printing Your Master Document

If you've successfully managed a master document to the point that you're ready to printcongratulations. Many people have never made it this far. But now that you have, printing a master document is pretty easy.

1. Expand the subdocuments using Outlining Master Document Expand Subdocuments or Alt+U, X .

   If you try to print your master document without expanding it, Word shows an alert box asking whether you want to open the subdocuments before printing. If you click Yes, Word expands your master document and prints all the subdocuments. If you click No, Word prints the links to the subdocuments instead of their contents.

2. At the right end of the Outlining tab, click Close Outline View to return to Print Layout view .

3. Now's your chance to make sure everything looks right. Another way to preview your document is by going to Office button Print Print Preview. This option lets you use Zoom tools and other cool stuff (Section 1.4.3) .

4. Quick Print). In Print Preview, click the Print button on the ribbon.