"kathy" wrote in message
...
I will soon be taking 7 large documents (with unknown
formatting) and placing them together into one larger
document with standardized formatting. I thought about
using the Master Document feature in Word 2002 but now I
am hesitant to do this after researching it. Any
recommendations on the best way to have one large
noncorrupt document?

I would strongly recommend against using master documents. This is why:

Why Master Documents corrupt
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/Wh...ocsCorrupt.htm

If your main aim is to have a consolidated Table of Contents and consecutive
page numbering though all the documents, try this:

Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=148

If you really want standard formatting, you will have a good deal of work
for yourself, but it can be done. Create a template with all styles defined
for all the different kinds of formatting you want. These articles will help
show you how.

Creating a Template - The Basics (Part I)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...platePart1.htm

Creating a Template (Part II)
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...platePart2.htm

When you can create new documents based on the template, copy your existing
text to them, and then apply the styles you have defined to each paragraph.

In addition, to make it easier to apply the new styles to your documents,
you might want to create a toolbar with a button for each of the styles you
have defined, so that it is a one-click operation to apply a style. This
article will show you how.

Creating Custom Toolbars for Templates
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/P...cle.asp?ID=262

Once you have got the formatting sorted, whether you consolidate all the
documents into a single file is largely a matter of personal preference.
I've handled documents of 5000 pages or so in a single file. Such documents
need a bit of care, but it is doable.


--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
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