creating manuals and wanting changes in 1 doc to update to the oth

[Guest]

Hi, A department I support has many manuals they have created in Word 2003. A
lot of the information is identical in these manuals. They want the ability
to just make changes in 1 "master manual" document and have it automatically
update the identical parts in the other manuals (being stored on a network
drive in separate folders). I have heard many bad things about corruption
issues using Word's master document features, so I don't want to use that if
I don't have to. I have briefly researched using bookmarks and IncludeText or
Link fields, none of those seem to update the information when I make changes
or maybe I don't understand how to use them correctly. Please help!!

 

[Anne Troy]

Use "Includetext". It's very easy!
Insert-->Field, choose IncludeText and point it to a document on the
server/PC.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[Guest]

I tried that already. It pulls the data into the "Master Manual" just fine,
but making changes to the data there doesn't update it in the other docs. I
tried it with bookmarks as well, no luck.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I think you just aren't setting up the IncludeText quite right. Help on
IncludeText is actually fairly good, and there's some additional preliminary
information on setting them up here:
http://daiya.mvps.org/includetext.htm

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

You might have it backwards. The multiple manuals should be pulling
information *from* the Master Manual, but you say "into"?

The IncludeText fields should be in the multiple manuals, and in there you
need to make sure you Update Fields. Select All and hit F9, or it's
explained in the link I posted.

 

[Guest]

You were right, i was thinking and saying it backwards. I finally got the
results I wanted by creating bookmarks in the "Master manual" & then
inserting Link fields (that point to the Master Manual bookmark) in the other
multiple manuals. I could then successfully update the "Master manual" and
have it push changes to the others. I made sure I checked the boxes for
"update fields automatically" & "preserve formatting during updates" while
creating the link fields. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction again.