Managing Master Documents

3 4

As you can see, working with master and subdocuments is a great way to manage and manipulate large files. The only downside to Master Documents is the sometimes complicated task of keeping your files straight. Some procedures you take for granted with ordinary files—such as saving, opening, renaming, and moving—take a little more thought when it comes to working with master documents. Here are some reminders for those times when you need to manage your master document files.

Saving Subdocument Files

Word saves the master document and all subdocuments when you choose File, Save or press Ctrl+S. The master document is saved under the name you entered the first time you saved the file, and Word names all the subdocuments automatically, using the first words of the heading as the file name. If you have several headings with the same title, Word adds numbers to the file names, such as "Lesson Plan1," "Lesson Plan2," and so on.

If you want to save a master document to a new location, choose File, Save As. Remember to create a new folder for the new master document and files. Then you'll need to select each individual subdocument and use Save As to save it to the new folder. Otherwise, the next time you open your master document, you'll see an error message telling you that the subdocument link is missing. Click Close to save the file and return to the document.

Renaming Subdocuments

If you want to rename a subdocument, start in the master document and select the subdocument you want to rename. Then choose File, Save As. When the Save As dialog box appears, enter the new name for the file and click Save. Because you renamed the file from within the master document, the link will be updated and preserved within the master information.

Selecting Subdocuments

One of the tricks to dividing a document into subdocuments accurately is in displaying and selecting the text you want to include. Make sure that you expand the selection fully before clicking Create Subdocument; otherwise, Word might not include all the text you want in the new subdocument.

Tip

---

If you don't get the whole subdocument the first time, click Remove Subdocument to merge the text back in with the master document; then select all the text for the subdocument again and click Create Subdocument.