how to combine 10 separate docs with tracked changes into 1 doc

[Guest]

I have 10 SEPARATE documents being reviewed with track changes by 5 different
people and want to combine all those documents with their tracked changes
into 1 document. Is this possible in word 2003 to keep the traked changes of
all the documents. I've tried and currently it seems this is not doable.

 

[Guest]

Create a master document then add each of your 10 documents as 'sub
documents'. It appears that the sub documents retain there 'tracked changes'.
You should then be able to print out the single 'master document'.

/bob

 

[Margaret Aldis]

If you combine the documents by copy and paste, you need to turn tracking
*off* in both the source and the target documents.

Alternatively, use Insert > File to insert the individual documents into
your combined document - tracked changes should be preserved regardless of
the settings.

I strongly advise you not to use Master documents to do this job - it's
complete overkill and unless you are very careful can lead to corruption
(complete loss of subdocuments, in extreme cases.)

 

[Guest]

A related question:

If you have 10 separate docs with tracked changes, it would be handy to
combine into one doc, where the result is that there is no change to the
text, it just shows up once in the correct place, and then when you come to a
change, it shows up in a unique color for each author, and if 2 authors
changed the language differently, each change would show up sequentially at
the same place in the document.

Not sure if I explained this well, but the concept is more of a 10 document
merge rather than insert as you suggest below. Insert seems to coonnote
that, for example, if the document is 1 page and you insert each of the 10
versions, you end up with roughly an 11 page doc with duplication and no easy
way of evaluating changes in one place. What I'm suggesting is that you end
up with, say, a 1.5 page doc where the unchanged parts just show up once and
the changed parts are all grouped together around the parts changed.

This would make managing multiple changed docs much easier.

Is this, or something similar (not Insert as you suggest below) available
under Word 2003? Do you know of any macros or third party programs which
facilitate this?

Tx for a prompt reply.