combining two Word 2007 files--retaining individual Style definitions

[Barbara White]

using Word 2007 on Windows XP or Windows 2000


This has always been a source of frustration in our department--we're
never quite sure how to do this successfully. So any help would be
appreciated by many!

We have two documents that share some Style names but which have
different definitions for those Styles. (For example, "Heading 1" in the
first document has entirely different font and paragraph characteristics
than "Heading 1" in the second document.)

How can we insert one document into the other document and not even come
close to risking ruining the layout because of those common-denominator
Style names?

I am in the position of defining the style sets that are used for that
first document, which is a template that contains a form to be used for
indicating sgnoff/approval of the inserted (second) document. So I could
maybe just use very unique Style names in that first document, the form.
However, I'm not sure how to get rid of default Styles like Heading 1,
Heading 2, Heading 3, Normal, etc.

What is the best way to do this? We've struggled with this for a long
time and wind up just not merging documents or doing so very, very
carefully. Help?

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

You cannot delete built-in style names such as Heading 1, Normal, etc.

One approach might be to use Find/Replace to replace Heading 1 (etc) with
user-created styles (e.g. Our Heading 1, Our Normal, etc.) before combining
the documents.

 

[Barbara White]

You cannot delete built-in style names such as Heading 1, Normal, etc.

One approach might be to use Find/Replace to replace Heading 1 (etc)
with user-created styles (e.g. Our Heading 1, Our Normal, etc.) before
combining the documents.

I've always secretly hoped that there was a way to delete built-in
Styles.

I thought about using Find/Replace, but whatever I do has to involve as
few steps as possible. There are some novice users who will be using
this process and I don't want to hit them with more than a couple of
things that they'll have to do to make this work.

Maybe there's a better way to do what I'm doing given our end goal. I'm
doing is creating a Word form. The notion is that we would open the
form, append a Word file to the end of it, and then send that
form-and-report file to people for review and approval. They'll review
that appended report and then complete the form that's at the front part
of the Word file. The appended report will have been based on a
template, but most times, the template isn't adhered to well or
consistently and the report winds up containing lots of direct
formatting. So I have to be careful (when merging that report with the
form) that I don't clobber that direct formatting. How to do that? Does
anyone have any ideas for doing this in a foolproof yet uncomplicated way?