Compiling a large document from many files

[R Miles]

I am working in Word 2003. I would like to compile a large document from
many files - over 2000 short files. Most of the files are one or two pages
but some are longer. They do not contain graphics, tables or fancy
formatting, most text.

I do not want to use the Master Document feature as it is not stable,
especiallly for such a large document. I plan to use Insert, File using
heading styles for each title with page break before in the definition of the
heading style. I will be creating a table of contents and using a
concordance file for creating an index for the whole document.

Is there a limit to how long the document can be? Is there a better
solution - perhaps several chapters instead of one large file? If so, could
I create a table of contents as well as an index for the entire document?

Thank you for your help,

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello Miles

I am working in Word 2003. I would like to compile a large document from
many files - over 2000 short files. Most of the files are one or two pages
but some are longer. They do not contain graphics, tables or fancy
formatting, most text.

I do not want to use the Master Document feature as it is not stable,
especiallly for such a large document. I plan to use Insert, File using
heading styles for each title with page break before in the definition of the
heading style. I will be creating a table of contents and using a
concordance file for creating an index for the whole document.

Is there a limit to how long the document can be? Is there a better
solution - perhaps several chapters instead of one large file? If so, could
I create a table of contents as well as an index for the entire document?

The limit is 32 MByte for the _raw text_ amount in your file. That's a
whole lot of phone books, so I very much doubt you can get even in the
vicinity with your document:

Operating parameter limitations and specifications in Word
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211489/en-us

I would try with one document. On a modern PC with enough RAM and a fast
HD. If every you suspect that things are too slow, you can try with a
file half that size.

In theory you could leave all files separately and compile INDEX and TOC
through a single file containing RD fields to each of the small files.
Another approach is to use Insert | File and _link_ to the contents.
That way, you could still work on individual files, but compile TOC etc.
in the wrapper file.

FWIW, Lutz Gentkow once posted a neat way to automatically create a
document consisting of INCLUDETEXT fields (and, as a step further, to
unlink these fields so that the file becomes static if that's what you
like):

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...*+author:lutz+author:gentkow#574f9668b9189f4e

HTH
Robert