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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I believe that the following warnings were given years ago. But for those newer forum members here they are again. I've experienced all of these first-hand:

1. In Word 2000 (and possibly later versions), combining separate Word documents may cause corruption of the combined document. I'm not certain, but the cause may be such things as page margins or other global settings that differ among the individual documents.

2. Some email systems (Lotus' for one) can actually "edit" attached Word and Excel files. I recall emailing an attached Word document to someone for review. She made a few changes and emailed it back. Some "edits" did not make sense, so I called her. She said that she had not made those changes. So we compared, via CDs, a copy my original document, the copy she received, her copy with her changes, and the emailed copy I received from her. It became clear that the email system had made RANDOM changes in the attached Word files---changes that could only be ascertained by rereading the entire document.

Suggestion: Transmit files by CD or, if by email, zip the files so that changes will more likely look like obvious corruptions.

3. Configuration management, for those not familiar with the term, means MAKE CERTAIN that changes to a document are made to the MOST RECENT revision. I've had contributors make changes to documents that were three revisions old. Programmers are very familiar with this problem.

-c

I lost work using MS Word. It usually happened when I was re-ordering chunks within files amounting to 20,000-plus words, and when the Document Map was involved.

There used to be a useful website giving instructions about how to avoid instability with Word and strip it down for longer projects: among many pieces of advice to help make the UI less bloated and more reliable it stressed that one absolutely shouldn't use the Document Map (as I only discovered later). This really wasn't acceptable to me, as an unreconstructed re-orderer and re-drafter.

That was several years ago and I was using Word 2003 or 2000. Its failings started me on the lengthy search for a satisfactory replacement for long-form writing. Most of the would-be "longer-writing" replacements for Word share the Document Map plus Editing Pane model that Word uses -- but try in various ways to avoid the corruption/instability/loss of work risks that Word seemed to run in the past (e.g. Page Four, Liquid Story Binder, Scrivener, Storyist, Chapter by Chapter).

I'm now back using Word, but for revision and editing only. It still seems to me that it's designed primarily for business correspondence and reports. Most of those new-ish rivals have now added functionality specifically designed for long-form, which Word lacks, although I've heard that by stripping it down and using macros you can achieve something that approaches Scrivener/Liquid Story Binder. Sounds too much like hard work to me. So I combine a drafting application in a workflow with a finishing and polishing application - MS Word.

I can't believe that Microsoft haven't now remedied the issues that caused the instability previously, and, of course, our hardware is now much more powerful and should be capable of allowing one to dice and slice long documents without turning them into alphabet-sludge. In addition, .doc, and .docx are still the standards for submission to agents and publishers in the UK and the US, and Word's revision functionality, mainly "Track Changes", is still the best as far I'm concerned, especially where "round-tripping' is involved. In this mode, I don't attempt big re-orderings of sections, and so far I haven't encountered any problems.

In this sense, Chapter by Chapter may be a solution to a problem that Word once had, but has no longer. But I still would be reluctant to trust it with hatching a book-length project from concept to query-letter.

To clarify, I start from one single document with specific format, break down into chapters, share them with the relevant collaborators in various ways (e.g. via Glasscubes which provides version) and then compile the final files. Up to now I have not had any issues.

Well, for me using a writing environment (in my case Word files embedded into Ultra Recall) helps to break down the content into manageable pieces. This is especially useful for "episode style" writing, as I am doing. You additionally can see which chapters, or episodes are at various stages, and link these together with research, notes, tasks, etc. (even e-mail!).

So basically it adds a lot of features and power present in Ultra Recall to the writing process.

Best, /Pavi

Gary Carson wrote:

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.