Problem with merge multiple Word Docs

[Sam1085]

Hi,

I have 6 documents to combine as 1 document. 1st document is the main document and rest of the 5 documents are sub documents. I tried to merge documents by add a section break to the end of the main document and then Insert >> Object drop down >> Text from file. After that I have check the formatting of sub documents. Some font sizes, alignments...etc got changed. That's the issue.

Sub documents are used to format more than 200 'user defined styles'. I think that's the reason for this formatting looses. But after the merge process, all 'user defined styles' imported into merged document. I don't know why changed formatting badly.

Please let me know if you have any macro or option to avoid this issue.
Thank you!

[HansV]

Do you really need more than 200 user-defined styles? It seems to me that a document doesn't improve if it uses that many styles...

[Sam1085]

Hi Hans,

I didn't create that documents. I have downloaded from internet. I prefer if can remove all custom styles without negatively affect document formatting.

[HansV]

I would either keep the documents separate, or copy/paste them as plain text into the target document, and then apply formatting as needed. Keeping the formatting from more than 200 custom styles in a combined document is a recipe for disaster.

[macropod]

FWIW, you can remove all Style info from a document by:
1. Save the file in RTF format
2. Open the RTF file in WordPad
3. Make a trivial edit (e.g. add a space character) in WordPad
4. Save & close the file in WordPad
5. Re-open the RTF file in Word.

[Sam1085]

Thank you Paul,

I will try your method.

[Sam1085]

Hi Paul,

Seems like your trick works awesome for my documents.

Thank you! for sharing this.

[ChrisGreaves]

FWIW, you can remove all Style info from a document by: ...

Paul, you freak me out!

[Sam1085]

FWIW, you can remove all Style info from a document by:
1. Save the file in RTF format
2. Open the RTF file in WordPad
3. Make a trivial edit (e.g. add a space character) in WordPad
4. Save & close the file in WordPad
5. Re-open the RTF file in Word.

Hi Paul,

I tried the above mentioned steps to resolve this document merge issue. It works more than 80% of my document. But I experienced few headings and paragraphs not merge as expected. I attached sample files here. Do you have any solution for this?

Thank you!

[macropod]

It's possible the technique doesn't remove Word's built-in Styles, which is what your sample document contains. Regardless, it does most of the corrective work for you. Even if it removed all Style info, you'd still need to go through the document post-merge and re-apply the correct Style to each paragraph.