Unwanted Blank First Page in Word 2016 Using Master Document Approach

Question

I have a very large Word 2016 document that I want to break up into subdocuments linked together into a master document. I have not worked with this feature before.

When I create and save the master document then insert the first subdocument and go into print layout view, I see a document with an unwanted blank first page beginning with a "Section Break (Next Page)". I can select the section break, go into Page Layout, and change the break type to "Continuous", but after returning to Page Layout view, the blank first page is still there and the initial section break still appears as "Section Break (Next Page)". How do I fix this?

Thanks

Answer 1

The following paragraph from the article about the Insert Text field that Stefan gave you applies to the most recent versions of Word as well. Otherwise, you simply insert the text.

"WinWord 2002 and 2003: In the Insert>File dialog, click on the little arrow attached to the Insert button, and choose "Insert as Link." This will insert the entire text of the file as an IncludeText field."

Note that this will not pick up headers and footers and will use the styles in the destination document if the styles are present in both documents.

For headers and footers, look into the **StyleRef Field**.

For yet one more warning on using Master Documents, see: Master Documents "Feature".

Answer 2

No, do not insert the file as an object. As I wrote, carefully click on the arrow on the Object button and then choose the Text from File option. (Note that Text from File is misleading, because it doesn't mean that you get only the text of the inserted document.)

The document inserted via an INCLUDETEXT field is referenced to an external file. You can actually edit the content displayed by an INCLUDETEXT field and save the changes back to the source file by pressing Ctrl+Shift+F7.

Answer 3

I tried using the Inserts > Object > Link to File method which is what the help file suggests doing, but what that seems to do is insert a portion of the first page of the linked document. The entire linked document is not visible. Any ideas?

Answer 4

Thank you. One follow up question: Does the including file end up actually containing the content of the source files, or just pointers to them? The whole reason I am looking to do this is that the document I want to break up into subdocuments is so huge now (> 1 GB) that it is unwieldy and slowing Word down unbearably.

Answer 5

Unfortunately, the master document feature has never been safe in Word (see http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/RecoverMasterDocs.htm). If you must keep a document in separate files, you can link them with INCLUDETEXT fields instead. For some tips, see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/includetextfields.htm but note that the article isn't up to date with recent versions of Word. In Word 2016, you can display the Insert File dialog box as follows: On the Insert tab, click the arrow on the Object box, and then choose Text from File.