Can I merge one .doc into another??

[MZB]

I am a college professor.

I have one .doc called Schedule. It is just a brief table with my class
schedule.

Each term I create a syllabus for each course and that includes a copy of my
schedule. I generally just update my schedule and then copy/paste into each
syllabus.

Is there any way that each syllabus could dynamically go to my schedule.doc
file and update itself whenever I change my schedule?

Mel

 

[Amy Blankenship]

You could create a data source that is all of your syllabuses and use your
schedule as the boilerplate for a letter merge.

HTH;

Amy

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Mel,

You could use IncludeText fields to pull the schedule.doc info into the
various syllabi. More information on them here:
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/tblsfldsfms/includetextfields.htm

However, I wonder if it is worth the trouble. Assuming you are updating the
syllabi each term anyhow, it's not that much trouble to paste in a schedule,
even for 4-5 courses. I suppose over years it could save some time, as long
as you don't reorganize your hard drive much, as moving the files might
break the IncludeText fields, which use a filepath. You'd still need to open
each syllabus and trigger the update each term.

If you change your schedule *during* the term and want otherwise stable
syllabi to automatically update the schedule portion, that could work okay
on your computer, but presumably you have already distributed the syllabus
and put a copy on the web, and those copies are not going to reflect any
such changes.

I definitely wouldn't go the mail merge route. Another option could be to
create a single AutoText each term, and then quickly enter that into each
syllabus. More info on that here:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/AutoText.htm
AutoText is a skill you'd be likely to use in a number of contexts, more so
than IncludeText, though using it in this context is not necessarily any
faster than copy and paste. AutoTexts do not update, you'd need to delete
and re-enter the changed one each term.

Hope that helps,

 

[MZB]

Thanks for the info. Very helpful.

I had tried the insert file before posting this. What I forgot was to check
the LINK part.

That did it.

Mel