Merging and Unmerging Documents after Editing?

[Danny]

Can anyone help me with this? I'm not sure if this is possible, but I have a
vague idea that I came across this as a Microsoft Word feature years ago but
have never had occasion to use it until now. (I have MS Word 2000, by the
way.)

I have 50 or so plain text files. I'm wondering if there is a way to merge
all 50 files into a single open Microsoft Word document, make a number of
global edits such as searching and replacing text strings, etc., and then
unmerging the files so that they each save back to their respective plain
text file.

In other words, if I've got:

textfile1.txt
The quick BROWN fox jumped over the LAZY dog.

textfile2.txt
The quick RED fox jumped over the ANGRY dog.

textfile3.txt
The quick PURPLE fox jumped over the NEUROTIC dog.


....I want to be able to quickly merge them all into a single open MS Word
document:

The quick BROWN fox jumped over the LAZY dog.

The quick RED fox jumped over the ANGRY dog.

The quick PURPLE fox jumped over the NEUROTIC dog.


....and then, say, run some search&replace edits and other edits, maybe
ending up with:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick red fox jumped over the angry dog.

The quick purple fox jumped over the neurotic dog.


....then I would want to be able to unmerge them somehow so that they would
quickly save back into their original plain text files as follows:

textfile1.txt
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

textfile2.txt
The quick red fox jumped over the angry dog.

textfile3.txt
The quick purple fox jumped over the neurotic dog.


Any help would be MUCH appreciated!! ;-)

-Danny

 

[lostinspace]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Danny" <>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.word.docmanagement,microsoft.public.word
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 10:25 PM
Subject: Merging and Unmerging Documents after Editing?

Can anyone help me with this? I'm not sure if this is possible, but I have
a
vague idea that I came across this as a Microsoft Word feature years ago
but
have never had occasion to use it until now. (I have MS Word 2000, by the
way.)

I have 50 or so plain text files. I'm wondering if there is a way to merge
all 50 files into a single open Microsoft Word document, make a number of
global edits such as searching and replacing text strings, etc., and then
unmerging the files so that they each save back to their respective plain
text file.

In other words, if I've got:

textfile1.txt
The quick BROWN fox jumped over the LAZY dog.

textfile2.txt
The quick RED fox jumped over the ANGRY dog.

textfile3.txt
The quick PURPLE fox jumped over the NEUROTIC dog.


...I want to be able to quickly merge them all into a single open MS Word
document:

The quick BROWN fox jumped over the LAZY dog.

The quick RED fox jumped over the ANGRY dog.

The quick PURPLE fox jumped over the NEUROTIC dog.


...and then, say, run some search&replace edits and other edits, maybe
ending up with:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick red fox jumped over the angry dog.

The quick purple fox jumped over the neurotic dog.


...then I would want to be able to unmerge them somehow so that they would
quickly save back into their original plain text files as follows:

textfile1.txt
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

textfile2.txt
The quick red fox jumped over the angry dog.

textfile3.txt
The quick purple fox jumped over the neurotic dog.


Any help would be MUCH appreciated!! ;-)

-Danny

Why reinvent the wheel with Word?
Do a google on a software named "AgentRansack"
copy all the text files into a solitary folder and have at it.

 

[Graham Mayor]

You don't need to merge documents to perform a global replace on them. See
http://www.gmayor.com/batch_replace.htm
and some text editors eg UltraEdit will natively run a replace on selected
files.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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