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Chapter by chapter rules!
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
May 7, 2012 at 07:05 AM
I just want to post here the new link to the Chapter by Chapter utility for handling composite MS Word files http://sites.google.com/site/sebberthet/chapter-by-chapter
On this occasion, a great thanks to Sebastien Berthet who has created it and put it online as freeware. I have found it an excellent solution for compiling documents produced by multiple authors. Though intended for novelists, it has practically no limitations in terms of content that can be handled.
Posted by Dr Andus
May 7, 2012 at 12:43 PM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>I just want to post here the new link to the Chapter by Chapter utility for handling
>composite MS Word files
>http://sites.google.com/site/sebberthet/chapter-by-chapter
Thanks, will need this at one point. What other tools are there for the PC that are good for compiling and producing Word documents out of multiple chapters? I’m aware of Scrivener and Writing Outliner.
Posted by Pavi
May 7, 2012 at 01:02 PM
Hi, you can do this with a macro, which makes it convenient to use with UltraRecall as the writing environment, for example. This makes UR a worthy competitor to Scrivener and others since all your research, notes, webpages, etc. can be cross-linked in, plus you can use flags/search to make to-do lists, etc. Please see my directions from an earlier post:
Hi again,
Sorry I forgot to mention that I use a system in Ultra Recall where I flag each chapter based on if it is a draft, needs revisions, etc. using the built in flags (ie. red needs a lot of work, yellow need some work, green is done). Then I setup saved searches for each flag so that I can get a list of all chapters that need revision.
Lastly, using a VBA macro in word, it is easy to merge all the documents. You just have all word documents embedded within an UR node, like ?Manuscript?, and export that to a given folder (that export can be saved). Open word and run the macro, and the whole job is done. So it is a two step process, but very fast and keeps the navigation pane for the merged document. The only two considerations are that 1) it seems to take documents in alphabetical order, so I use ?A_title? and ?Chapter 1?, ?Chapter 2? to keep the ordering, and 2) you need to delete the files if you do it again so that there are not duplicates. I plan to do this only very infrequently, but it is good to have.
This method also has the added awesomeness that you can use a citation manager (I use Mendeley) in each individual document, and then at the end have a ?References document? that will update after you export. Hence, you can use this to manage chapters of a thesis, for example, which you have a lot of PubMed citations for in Mendeley. I believe that Scrivener lacks Mendeley or Zotero integration.
Here is a link with the VBA instructions: http://www.addictivetips.com/microsoft-office/merge-multiple-word-2010-documents/
Please pay attention to the comments that mention that you need to change the quotes to ?? instead of ?? and add \ after the path.
Best, /Pavi
Dr Andus wrote:
>
>
>Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>>I just want to post here the new link to the Chapter by
>Chapter utility for handling
>>composite MS Word files
>
>>http://sites.google.com/site/sebberthet/chapter-by-chapter
>
>Thanks,
>will need this at one point. What other tools are there for the PC that are good for
>compiling and producing Word documents out of multiple chapters? I’m aware of
>Scrivener and Writing Outliner.
Posted by Gary Carson
May 7, 2012 at 01:49 PM
Just out of curiosity, why is something like this needed for writing a novel? Specifically, why would you need to create separate files for each chapter in a novel? I can see why doing that might be helpful for technical nonfiction, but I can’t think of any reason for it when you’re writing fiction.
The novel format is very simple. It’s just text. And Word has no problem handling novel-length files. I’ve written several novels in Word 2003 and never had any trouble. The first book was over 100K words and had something like 94 chapters. The second was around 75K with 30 or 40 chapters. I wrote each of them in one long file. Nothing to it.
Seems to me that this application—as good as it might be—is a solution looking for a problem.
Posted by Gary Carson
May 7, 2012 at 01:56 PM
I should’ve said that it’s a solution looking for a problem when it comes to writing novels. I can see how this would be very useful for other things.