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Subject:RE: Creating a Master Doc in Word From:Maggie Pierce Secara <maggiros -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 30 Jul 2003 13:03:00 -0700 (PDT)
> > Does anyone out there know of a good quick checklist or
> > procedure for creating a Master Document in Word and
> CAN you
> > create a Master Doc if you already have chapters
> created?
>
Steve isn't really the only person, but he is ALMOST the
only person who uses these without probnlems. You must be
very very organized, right from the start, and never
deviate from your plan.
My experience with Master Documents is that they are evil
and should be banned. When you make a stupid mistake (and
you will) you can lose a whole chapter, poof!, graphics and
all into the void. And I do mean void. No recovery. No
back up. No hope.
I'd say, teach yourself to use them on a test project, with
pages you can afford to lose. Make it last long enough so
that over weeks you get tired and bored with the thing and
watch the errors creep in until whoosh! Or not. If you're
painstaking, you'll be fine.
Otherwise, keep each chapter in a separate file and use RD
fields to generate your ToC and Index. I don't think even
Young Goodman Hudson suggests turning pre-existing chapters
into a Master Doc (but I've been wrong before).
=====
Maggie Secara
Note: This post may contain misspellings, grammatical errors, disorganized sentence structure, or may entirely lack a coherent theme. These elements are natural to the process of writing, and will only add to the overall beauty of the post.
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