Working with Master Document and Subdocument Files

After you've created your master document and subdocuments, the next step is to begin working with them. In the following sections, we'll show you the fundamentals of opening, saving, and editing master documents and subdocuments. Then, later in the chapter, you'll learn essential techniques for reorganizing them.

Saving a Master Document

You can save a master document the same way you save any other Word file: by clicking the Save button, pressing Ctrl+S, or choosing File, Save.

When you save a master document that contains new subdocuments, Word creates new files for each subdocument and stores them in the same folder as the master document. Word automatically names your subdocuments, using the first letters or phrase at the beginning of each subdocument. If the names of more than one subdocument would be identical, or if another identical filename already exists in the same folder, Word adds a number to distinguish the files. For example, if the subdocuments all start with the word "Chapter," they would be named

Chapter.doc
Chapter1.doc
Chapter2.doc

Word is capable of creating subdocument names that are exceptionally long: up to 229 characters. However, Word will stop a subdocument name whenever it encounters punctuation?even an apostrophe. The result? You can have one subdocument name that is a full sentence long, and another one named Don, from a heading that starts with the word "Don't."

Saving a Subdocument

When you save a master document, Word also saves all subdocuments. You can also save any individual subdocument you have opened from within the master document, using any of Word's tools for saving files (the Save button on the Standard toolbar, the Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut, or the File, Save menu command).

After you create and save a subdocument, Word stores its contents in the subdocument?not in the master document. This has two important implications.

First, as you'll see shortly, it means that you (or a colleague) can edit a subdocument without opening the master document. You simply open the subdocument as you would any other Word document. Assuming that nobody else is using the file, nothing tells you you're working on a subdocument rather than a normal document.

Second, it means that if you delete a subdocument, move it, or rename it?without doing so from within the master document?the subdocument will disappear from the master document. The link will still appear in the master document, but when you try to expand the subdocument to view its contents, Word will display a message that the file is missing.

Opening a Master Document

After you create, save, and close a master document, you can open it the same way you open any other document. When you first open a master document, however, rather than headings that correspond to the top-level headings of each subdocument, you see hyperlinks that show the name and location of each subdocument in your master document (see Figure 19.6).

If you prefer to see formatted headings and text rather than hyperlinks, click the Expand Subdocuments button. You can then use Outlining toolbar buttons such as Show Heading 1 and Show Heading 2 to control how much detail you see in your subdocuments.

Editing a Subdocument from Within the Master Document

After you've opened the master document, you can either edit individual subdocuments from within the master document or display only the subdocument for editing.

To display an individual subdocument file for editing, Ctrl+click on the hyperlink. The subdocument now appears in its own window. Section breaks appear at the end of the document, as discussed earlier. The original master document remains open even while you're editing a subdocument this way. If you are using Word 2003's default "single document interface," in which each open document gets its own taskbar icon, you can view the original master document at any time by clicking its taskbar icon (see Figure 19.7).

Sometimes, you may prefer to edit a subdocument with the rest of the master document's contents visible. For example, you may want to move text from one subdocument to another, or to create references to text in another subdocument. To view the contents of the entire master document, click Expand Subdocuments and then use Word's Outlining toolbar buttons to focus on the specific areas of text you want to edit.

No matter how you open a subdocument, you're not limited to viewing and editing it in Outline view. Select whatever view makes the most sense for the editing you need to do.

Editing Subdocuments Outside the Master Document

As you've learned, you don't have to open a master document to edit one of its subdocuments. You can open the subdocument directly, by using the Open dialog box or by double-clicking on its icon in Windows Explorer. If you're using master documents to manage a document with several authors, this is how your colleagues typically open the subdocuments you delegate to them.

Here's a rule of thumb: Open subdocuments separately when you intend to make changes that affect only the subdocument. For example, it's fine to open the subdocument separately if you plan to do any of the following:

• Edit text within the subdocument

• Create footnotes to appear at the bottom of the page or at the end of the subdocument

• Create temporary headers or footers that you only want to print from within the subdocument

• Check spelling within the subdocument

• Print only the subdocument

On the other hand, if you plan to make organizational, formatting, or editing changes that affect the entire document, open the subdocument from within the master document as described previously.

After you've completed work on the subdocument, you can save and close it the same way you would save any normal Word document.