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You may not have heard about master and subdocuments in Word before. They are a feature that has been available for some time, but are not widely used by many people. They are used as a way to develop smaller documents and then combine them together into a larger document. The classic example is chapters in a book. Each chapter might be in its own document, but can be combined together, using a master document, into a larger whole that represents the entire book.
Perhaps it is best to view a master document as a container. You can put information directly within the container, but you can also put other containers within the container. These containers, in turn, contain other information. A master document is nothing but a container for text and graphics (like a regular document), but also pointers to individual documents called subdocuments. When you are working with the master document, it appears to contain all the information within the subdocuments, even though the subdocuments are individual files.
There are several advantages to working with master and subdocuments:
Even though there are advantages to working with master and subdocuments, there are also drawbacks. This is to be expected, since managing documents in this manner adds another layer of technological complexity to your documents. Any time this happens, it seems there is always a greater chance of things "getting messed up." This is the first and potentially most serious drawback—that you could end up messing up your document because of the increased complexity.
Another drawback is that it is harder to move the documents to a different location. With regular documents, you can simply move or copy them to a different location. With master and subdocuments you need to go through a specific process, as described in another tip.
Tip #221 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 2000 2002 2003 2007
Create Rock-Solid Lists! Bulleted and numbered lists can help make your writing clearer and easier to follow. If not done properly, however, they can be a nightmare to work with. Discover the ins and outs of Word's lists with this great reference available in two versions.