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: Combining Word Documents.

Combining Word Documents

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 19, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365

Word provides a very easy way to combine documents, without the typical cut-and-paste routine. This is great for boilerplate text in your document. All you need to do is use the INCLUDETEXT field within a document. Follow these steps:

Insert a pair of field braces by pressing Ctrl+F9.
Within the field braces type INCLUDETEXT, followed by a space and the name of the document you want to include. Make sure you surround the document name with quote marks. For instance, if I wanted to include MyFile.Doc, my field would look as follows:

     { INCLUDETEXT "MyFile.Doc" }

Press F9 to update the field.

At this point, the specified file should appear within your document. If it doesn't (for instance, if you get an error message), then make sure you typed the document name correctly, and that you included a full path name. (You must include the full path name if the document is in a directory different from the one in which the current document is located.)

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13137) 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: Combining Word Documents.

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. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Bumping Numbers in a Document

If your documents include words that contain numbers (such as a list of parts numbers) you may need a way to increment ...

Discover More

Changing the Height of a Font

Scaling the width of a font is easy to do with Word's formatting capabilities. Scaling the height of the fonts is not so ...

Discover More

Omitting Page Numbers on Some Pages

Excel doesn't allow for as robust of headers and footers as Word does. Even so, there are some things you can do to ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Use Filenames that Sort Properly

If you take some care when you name your document files, you'll find it much easier to manage those files at a later ...

Discover More

Setting Your Default Document Directory

Word allows you to specify where it should start looking for your documents. This setting can come in handy if you store ...

Discover More

Determining If a File Exists

Your macro may need to know if a particular file exists. This is easy to figure out using the Dir command, and even ...

Discover More

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.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is two more than 7?

2020-09-19 19:43:54

Peter Thomas

Just a note of caution that when typing the path in the field you must use the \\ separator rather than the single \. I also had some trouble until I included both the path and filename within the quotes.

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.