Repeating Data (Word 2003)

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I have a client who wants to know if there is an easy way to admend a document, which in turn amends several documents with the same information. He would like to be able to just update the one document and have it update all the others. I know you can use ref fields within the same document but I dont know about several other documents. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Carol

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You can copy some text to the clipboard, and use Edit | Paste Special… with the Paste Link option in another document to paste the text. It will automatically be updated.

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Thanks Hans, as always, for your quick reply. I wanted to add that I found another way to do this so that it might help others. You can use an {INCLUDETEXT} field in your document that automatically reads the contents of the second file. You click on Insert | Insert File. Select the name of the file and use the drop-down arrow to the right of the Insert button and select Insert Link. MS Word will add a {INCLUDETEXT} field to your document.

Thank you for all your help Hans – past, present and future!

Carol

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If you want to include an entire document, an INCLUDETEXT field is more convenient than a LINK field (the type of field created by Paste Special > Paste Link).
You can also use INCLUDETEXT to include the text of a bookmark in another document, but then LINK is more convenient, because LINK is updated automatically while INCLUDETEXT isn’t – you must either select it and press F9 or print/print preview the document to update it.

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Ah, but INCLUDETEXT fields have their own advantages – like supporting the use of embedded fields (eg for relative paths and mailmerge purposes), that LINK fields don’t support, and for allowing you to edit the linked text in the target document.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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OK, good point. Thanks.

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Thank you all for the clarification! As always, I know I can count on all of you!

Carol

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Hi Carol,

INCLUDETEXT fields have their own advantages – like supporting the use of embedded fields (eg for relative paths and mailmerge purposes – see post 670027 for the relative path details), that LINK fields don’t support, and for allowing you to edit the linked text in the target document (you do this by selecting the field and pressing Ctrl-Shift-F7 after doing your edits).

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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