Merging documents in word

Is this article up to date?

Sometimes when you’re collaborating on a word document with co-workers or editors, the number of copies, edits, and changes can quickly grow out of hand. This is why it’s helpful to have the option to combine two separate documents in Word, because a copy and an edited copy will not only merge, but you’ll also have the option to label which changes were made by a specific author and when.

Learn how you can easily merge two documents in Microsoft Word.

To start, open the first document you want to act as the primary document. Then, using the top toolbar, click on the “Review” tab, and find the button labeled “Compare.”

From here, click the option to “Combine …” from the drop-down menu.

This will open up a secondary box where you’ll need to select the two documents you want to combine from a drop-down list.

Choose the first document you want to act as the master. In general, you’ll want this to be the original copy, while the second document should be the copy with any edits from other people. Also, make sure you use the “Label unmarked changes” box to identify which users made changes to which aspects of the document.

If you click “More,” you can also control where these changes will be shown, either in the “Original document,” the “Revised document,” or in a “New document.”

Manage the Combined Document

Once the document is merged, you’ll be greeted by the following window.

Here you’ll see three independent sections – the left showing the “Revisions” made to the document, the middle showing the combined document, and the right section which will show both the original document and the revised document simultaneously.

If this amount of information is a bit too overwhelming, you can click the “Compare” button again, and scroll down to find the option labeled “Hide source documents.”

Click on this and bring the three sections down to two.

Merge in Additional Copies

If you’d like to add in more copies (such as in the example of having multiple edits per document), simply repeat the same process as you did above, but use the “Revised document” as your original copy, and then find the secondary documents you want to add in from the same list you used for the initial import.

Copy and Paste

Of course, if you want to cut down on all the complicated measures listed above, there’s always the trusty process of simply hitting Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V.

To use this option, find the source text that you want to import into your new document, and select anything you want to bring over with your mouse.

Next, either right-click the text and choose “Copy” from the drop-down menu, or simply use the key command mentioned above to cut the text and paste it into the new document you want to edit.

Wrapping Up

The way you choose to merge your two documents will ultimately depend on the amount of control you want to have over what gets imported, as well as how many edits are made available during the revision process. Luckily, Word includes several different options for merging documents, so you can use it however suits your personal case the best!

If you are someone that works with Microsoft Word a lot, you have probably come across a time when it would have been very convenient to merge a few Microsoft Word documents together, creating a single master file.

Merging is possible via the manual process of copy-and-paste, although its not very intuitive.

Microsoft does offer us a simpler way to merge multiple documents at once through their ‘Text Merge’ or ‘Object Merge’ function. It is easier but still seems a little clunky.

Nevertheless, in this post, we will show you how to merge multiple Word documents together using Microsoft tools. Because there are some exciting new tools on the market now that actually make this easier, we take you through those as well.

Let’s start with how to merge Word documents using Microsoft’s tools.

How to Combine Word Documents

1. Open the Word document you wish to use as the ‘Master’.
   • The Master Document is the document that you will merge all other documents onto.
2. Find and click the Insert tab.

1. Find and Click Text in the Interest tab drop-down.

1. Locate Object in the drop-down and click the small triangle next to it.

1. Find and click Text from File in the dropdown menu.

1. Select the Word Documents you wish to merge into the Master Document.
   • To select more than one document, press and hold Ctrl (PC) Shift (MAC) and click on each document you wish to merge into the Word Document.

The files will merge in the order they are selected. The first file selected will appear at the top when merged, followed by each subsequent document.

If you are trying to merge them in a certain sequence either select them manually or sort the files by file name, for example, Document 1, Document 2, Document 3 so they merge in the desired order.

Once you have merged all of your files into the Master Document be sure to save it as a new version. Giving it a new file name so that it is easily identified in your shared drive.

Looking for an easier way to collaborate and merge Word Documents?

The most common reason we need to merge multiple Microsoft Word Documents is that you are collaborating on a file with your team and two or more team members made edits at the same time. Leaving you with multiple versions of the same document and no way to easily merge them together.

Manually merging your documents by copy-and-paste is tedious, while Microsoft’s insert object tool only allows you to stick one document onto the bottom of another. What about merging them – combining them, paragraph for paragraph and picking up on the tracked changes between the two?

This is where purpose-built version control and collaboration tools like Simul Docs really shine. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Upload & Invite

Instead of emailing documents around, you simply upload it to your Simul account and invite people to collaborate on it with you.

Step 2: Collaborators open and edit the document

Collaborators can access the latest version of a document in Word or Word Online in just 1 click.

When they click the ‘Open in Word’ button it opens the selected version in Word on their computer and they can simply make changes like they normally would.

When they click ‘Save’ a new version is automatically created in Simul and collaborators are notified. No need for crazy filenames like ‘Contract_V12_FINAL’ and/or emailing documents back and forth between collaborators.

Step 3: See what changed, even if Track Changes wasn’t on

Simul has its own comparison algorithm that shows you exactly what each person changed, even if Track Changes wasn’t turned on.

Step 3: Work simultaneously on the document

Now that you know what changes were made in the last version, you can open the document again and keep working.

If you happen to open the document at the same time as another collaborator, then Simul can handle that.

It automatically recognises when multiple people are editing the document at the same time, and saves each person’s changes in a separate branch so that nobody’s work gets overridden.

You can then merge these branches in just 1 click, and each author’s changes are marked up as tracked changes in Word, allowing you to easily identify the differences, accept or reject the changes, and fix any conflicts.

With software like Simul Docs on your team, you should never need to manually merge Microsoft Word documents again. You can work in a streamlined, effective manner knowing that Simul will track everything for you, manage your version control and allow you to easily merge any conflicting versions at the click of a button.

Combine multiple files (Word, PDF, PPT, JPG, Excel) with high speed online

Merge documents, photos, scans online

Combine files in various formats online for free. Our web service is designed to merge documents, photos, scans to a single file. Use it to join Word, PDF, JPG, PNG, Excel, PowerPoint files and combine them online. You can do it quickly and efficiently, without installing any software. Our service works from any web browser on any operating system.

Free Document Merger Online

You may need to merge documents, photos, scans in many cases. When it comes to organizing your data, file merging will help you to save paper and time. For example, you may want to join photos or scans together online for printing. Or you may want to create a single documents from multiple files and send the combined result to your colleagues. To do the job, just use our Free Document Merger, that will process a set of files and join them together in seconds.

Combine Word, PDF, HTML, JPG files online

This is a free document and image merging solution. Combine scans, photos, documents in the order you want. We guarantee the professional quality of the result.