Working on multiple word files from a single file????

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rich
  • Start date Start date
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Rich

I usually get batches of small Word documents (50 - 100
files) for translation. Some of the files only contain 1
word or a few sentences.

Someone had helped me with a Macro before that imports
all the files into one Word file. I do the translation in
this file which is a lot faster and easier for me. The
problem is that I have to copy & paste the text back into
their original files once I am done. And this still takes
ages.

Does anyone know of any Macro or anything else that would
allow me to work on all these files in 1 document but be
able to update all the original files?

Rich
 
Hi Rich,
I usually get batches of small Word documents (50 - 100
files) for translation. Some of the files only contain 1
word or a few sentences.

Someone had helped me with a Macro before that imports
all the files into one Word file. I do the translation in
this file which is a lot faster and easier for me. The
problem is that I have to copy & paste the text back into
their original files once I am done. And this still takes
ages.
Click to expand...
My suggestion would be to use this same approach (inserting
files into a single file), but do so with a link. The result
of this is an IncludeText field, and one litte-known but
very useful thing you can do with an IncludeText field is
send changes you make in the linked text back to the source
document. Just click in the field (the linked text) and
press Ctrl+Shift+F7.

If the original macro was designed using InsertFile, you
should be able to make one small change (activating the
Linking parameter) and you'd be all set. You might want to
copy/paste the macro into a reply if you don't know how to
do this yourself.
Does anyone know of any Macro or anything else that would
allow me to work on all these files in 1 document but be
able to update all the original files?
Click to expand...

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun
8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail
:-)
 
Maybe use a Master document? Then each file remains
separate, though you view/edit them as one file.
TEST first, to be sure it does what you want, esp if
you have to have page numbers or sections in them,
which you probably don't, but test anyway.
Master Documents are sometimes unreliable, but I've
always had fair to good results for cases such as you
have, when I worked with remote folks who were language
translators. If it screws up, in my experience, it'll
be the Master Document which gets screwed up, not the
individual documents. When you close Master Document,
you're left with all the indivicual files.
YMMV I suppose. The Master Document is nothing but a
tool to pull them all into one "shell" for editing and
they LOOK like, but aren't all one document in the
Master Document view.
The supposedly only reliable use for Master
Documents is for printing many files as one, so page
numbers etc. flow properly, but I've used it for
editing also in 97 and 2002 on XP Pro.

Help has a decent write up on creating them.

Pop
 
Hi Pop,

(Since you posted as a reply to me...)
Maybe use a Master document? Then each file remains
separate, though you view/edit them as one file.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't recommend it for editing in the "master file".
You can do that, but the chances of screwing things up,
even in the sub documents, is comparatively high(er) than
with the other approach.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update
Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail
:-)
 
Cindy M -WordMVP- said:
Hi Pop,

(Since you posted as a reply to me...)

I wouldn't recommend it for editing in the "master
file".
You can do that, but the chances of screwing things
up,
even in the sub documents, is comparatively high(er)
than
with the other approach.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last
update
Jun 8 2004)


This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post
any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by
e-mail
:-)
Click to expand...

Cindy,

Yeah, I posted it that way so you could rebutt if you
disagreed strongly. I know even MS says to be careful
about it. I've usually had fair successes with it,
and I did leave out to make a backup copy of everything
first, so your response was worthwhile. I don't edit a
LOT from the Master Document, but I do use the Master
Document to contain the files, organize them for
similarities, and so forth.
I"ve forgotten the original post now, and no time
to go back, but your advice isn't wrong by any means.
From what I've heard, I suspect it works to different
degrees in different language versions for some reason.
I have a translator friend with a Japanese version and
the English add-ins and she can't touch a Master
Document with a ten foot pencil. I -think- she just
used multiple instances and opened several files at
once. For shorties, shed used to import them into
Excel somehow; I never figured out how to do that
successfully without making it a lot of work.
Hmmm, caveat: I'm on XP Pro also; wonder what the
op was?

Anyway, thanks for the catch; I was dismally brief, too
it would seem.

Pop
 
Hi Pop,
Yeah, I posted it that way so you could rebutt if you
disagreed strongly. I know even MS says to be careful
about it. I've usually had fair successes with it,
and I did leave out to make a backup copy of everything
first, so your response was worthwhile. I don't edit a
LOT from the Master Document, but I do use the Master
Document to contain the files, organize them for
similarities, and so forth.
Click to expand...
No worries :-)

For my part, if all the documents are OK (no damage), the
connection to the files (network!) isn't acting up, and the
whole thing's not too big... Then just editing a little in
the text has never caused problems.

Good way to break them, though, is moving things around,
especially between sections (sub-docs). Or trying to change
the order of sub-docs.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update
Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail
:-)
 
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