Re: Word Masterdoc problems

[Iain Harrison <iharrison -at- SCT -dot- CO -dot- UK>]

 Janet Valade asks about Master Doc problems in Word.

 I'll tell you what is wrong with master doc in Word: It is
 broken.

 You may have been lucky up to now, but I STRONGLY advise you to
 make a backup of those individual files NOW. I tried Master Sub
 docs more than once (admittedly for bigger docs that you are
 describing) and sometimes they worked. Sometimes they didn't.
 Sometimes trying to save the document resulted in a file that
 couldn't ever be opened again.

 I think the problems stem from several different constraints:
 file handles, system resources and plain old bugs in the code
 amongst others. Use Master Sub docs for any time and I
 guarantee that it will end in tears.

 If you want to have a ToC and index that goes across several
 files, just use Word's RD field. That way, the entries from
 other documents get included. It works quickly and reliably.

 The only thing that RD doesn't address is page numbering. You
 have to manually start the second file's page numbering where
 the first ended, and so on.

 Word 7 seems to manage Master Subs slightly better, as did Word
 6 for Windows NT, but they are still not dependable at all.

 aster Sub Documents? Just say no!

 Iain
 iharrison -at- sct -dot- co -dot- uk