Understanding Master and Subdocuments

You may not have heard about master and subdocuments in Word before. They are a feature that has been available for some time but are not widely used by many people. They are used as a way to develop smaller documents and then combine them together into a larger document. The classic example is chapters in a book. Each chapter might be in its own document, but can be combined together, using a master document, into a larger whole that represents the entire book.

Perhaps it is best to view a master document as a container. You can put information directly within the container, but you can also put other containers within the container. These containers, in turn, contain other information. A master document is nothing but a container for text and graphics (like a regular document), but also pointers to individual documents called subdocuments. When you are working with the master document, it appears to contain all the information within the subdocuments, even though the subdocuments are individual files.

There are several advantages to working with master and subdocuments:

• Individuals or groups can work on the subdocuments, while someone else works on organizing the subdocuments within the master document.
• You can work on multiple documents within their final context, as determined by the master document.
• You can create indexes, tables of contents, and other lists based on the contents of multiple files.
• You can create cross-references between the subdocuments.
• Printing an entire complex document is easier because you simply need to print the master.

Even though there are advantages to working with master and subdocuments, there are also drawbacks. This is to be expected, since managing documents in this manner adds another layer of technological complexity to your documents. Any time this happens, it seems there is always a greater chance of things "getting messed up." This is the first and potentially most serious drawback—that you could end up messing up your document because of the increased complexity.

Another drawback is that it is harder to move the documents to a different location. With regular documents, you can simply move or copy them to a different location. With master and subdocuments, you need to go through a specific process, as described in another tip.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12634) 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: Understanding Master and Subdocuments.