Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Creating Two Versions of the Same Document.

Creating Two Versions of the Same Document

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 11, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365


3

Barry is a teacher and likes to use Word to create handouts for his class. He also uses Word to create detailed notes for him to teach from. The detailed notes document is a superset of the handout. Barry is searching for the best way to "marry" the handout document to the detailed notes document so that if he makes a change to the handout it is also reflected in his notes. He has tried using only one document for everything and formatting his detailed notes as hidden text, but that doesn't always work. (For instance, a numbered list will have missing numbers in the handout if he hides some of it.) His detailed notes are interspersed among the handout text, so he can't simply have a master/subdocument.

Actually, you've thought about two good approaches, but there are others. The hidden text approach might still be possible; the only difference is in how you prepare the text in your document. For instance, instead of putting your notes in their own paragraphs (which would entail them having their own numbers in a numbered list), you could make the notes part of the previous paragraph by pressing Shift+Enter at the end of the student portion of the text. Your note then won't get its own number, and you can still hide it so you can control printing.

Another option is to forego the hidden text and put your notes into comments. Word allows you to turn off the display and printing of comments in much the same way as you do with hidden text.

Closely related to comments is to use all the markup tools enabled through Track Changes. In your document you can activate Track Changes when you are ready to put in your own notes. They then show in the document as "added" text. Word allows you to print your document with or without markup visible, so you can print it with or without the added text (your notes).

There is another advantage to the Track Changes approach, as well. If you add something in your notes that you later decide you want visible in the student handout, all you need to do is select that something and then "accept" the revision for what you selected. It then becomes part of the original document and will be printed on the handout.

While you noted that using master and subdocuments doesn't work well for your needs, there is a parallel approach that may be adaptable—use the INCLUDETEXT field instead. Your notes could be in a number of small documents (call them subdocuments, if you want), and then you place INCLUDETEXT fields in the student handout to indicate where those insertions should occur. If you want, you could even place your notes in a single document, bookmark the various chunks, and then use multiple INCLUDETEXT fields with a bookmark parameter to reference the chunks in the notes file. Within the student handout you can format the fields as hidden text and then print with or without hidden text visible to get your desired printout.

You might also look to augment Word with another program. In Word 2010 or a later version you can use OneNote to assemble your notes and link them to your student handout. This process is best described in this tutorial from Microsoft:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/take-linked-notes-in-onenote-8e9e53ce-b2f1-4c4c-9745-fff878eec0b7

Finally, you can abandon Word altogether and use a different program that may be more suited to what you want to do. For instance, you might use PowerPoint to actually create the handouts and notes. While we most often think of PowerPoint as a way to make overhead slides, a slide could just as easily be formatted to represent a piece of paper. Your student handout would be made in the "slides" portion of the presentation and you can then add notes to each slide, as desired. When it comes time to print you can choose to either print just the slides (for the students) or the slides and notes (for you).

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12434) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Creating Two Versions of the Same Document.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Centering a Custom Paper Size on a Piece of Letter-Sized Paper

Sometimes getting your printed output to match your expectations can be a challenge. Such is the case when you want to ...

Discover More

Unable to Use Bulleting and Numbering

Got a document where you just can't get bullets and numbering to work right? It could be that your document is corrupted. ...

Discover More

Editing the Windows Registry

The Registry is the central depository of configuration information used by Windows and by programs running on your ...

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Finding Out the Folder for an Open Document

If you work with a lot of documents at the same time, it can be difficult to remember the folder in which any given ...

Discover More

Setting a Default Document Format

Word allows you to save your documents in a variety of different formats. You can specify the format when you actually ...

Discover More

Document is Too Large for Word to Handle

Imagine trying to open a familiar document one day, only to find that Word gives you an error message that the file is ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is five more than 0?

2019-12-30 18:46:07

Ken

If the notes are in separate paragraphs with a specific paragraph style then the handout document can be easily produced by using Find & Replace to remove all notes paragraphs. The notes style can be excluded from numbering or the notes paragraphs can have their own numbering. The notes can be made to stand out with font characteristics in the style, such as color, size, bold etc.


2019-12-29 13:45:07

David Cohen

It's a little hard to follow the details of the problem, but I believe one way would be to set the document up as a 2-column table: main text on the left, notes on the right.

I also think that track changes is over-used and too much trouble for what's actually needed. If you want to identify some piece of text as new (new to that version), you can render it into font of a different color (I use blue).

Next version, render everything back into black, new text again, in blue.


2019-12-28 16:50:20

David Gray

When I did a lot of public speaking, I used PowerPoint as described to create slides to hand out and notes for my use. I printed the slides 3 to a page, leaving room to the right of each for my audience to make their own notes. I could project the slides and have my notes to remind me of details that either wouldn't fit or had no business being on the slides. The idea worked so well that it never occurred to me to consider using Microsoft Word.

More recently, my wife had a job as a teacher for several years, and the school used PowerPoint almost exclusively to organize their curriculum.


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.