How to combine Word documents.
Share your documents with ease. Learn how to combine multiple Microsoft Word documents into one file.
Both the sender and the recipient often find it challenging to share multiple Microsoft Word documents — but you can simplify the task by merging them into one file before sharing. This can be particularly useful if the documents are related. Read on and learn how to combine Word documents for easier sharing.
Why learn how to merge Word documents?
Learning how to merge Word documents can make sharing information between co-workers and classmates easier. Here are some of the other benefits of combining Word documents:
- It puts all your documents in one place, making it easier to find information.
- It saves time that you would spend opening different documents.
- It saves space on your device.
- It makes it easier to share documents.
Steps to combine Word documents easily.
Word makes it quick and easy to combine text documents. Follow these steps to merge your Word documents:
- Launch Word and open the document that appears first in the combined file.
- Select the Insert tab from the top toolbar.
- Select the small black arrow next to the Object button in the Text section.
- From the Object dropdown menu, select Text from File.
- Locate your other files and select Insert.
Word will add all text from the additional files to wherever you’ve placed your text selection cursor — but remember to make sure that you’ve clicked on where you want the new text to go before merging documents.
It’s easy to combine Word documents, but there are some limitations. As the function’s name states, Word can only merge text. If your other files have pictures or advanced formatting, these features may not display correctly — or at all — in the merged document.
Convert your merged Word document to a PDF.
You can ensure your documents look right by converting from Word to PDF files with Adobe Acrobat. The PDF format will retain all formatting from the original file. After conversion, you can use Acrobat to merge the documents into one PDF file easily.
After I merge Word documents, can I split them?
Knowing how to merge Word documents can be a useful tool for work and school, as well as organizing and compressing your personal files and documents. But what happens when you need to split those documents into smaller and more manageable sections?
Splitting a merged document in Word is not difficult, and you can learn how to do it by following these simple steps:
- Open Microsoft Word, select File, and then Open.
- Navigate to the merged document and double-click to open it.
- Locate the section that you want to split into a new document. Then, highlight all of the text that you want to remove and press Ctrl+X to remove the selected text and copy it to the clipboard.
- Select the File menu and then click New Blank Document.
- Press Ctrl+V simultaneously to paste the text from the clipboard into the new document.
- Save both of the documents by pressing Ctrl+S.
More resources to work with Word files.
Now that you’ve learned how to merge Word documents, you can also:
- Convert a PDF to Word.
- Edit a PDF in Word.
- Duplicate pages in Word.
- Insert a PDF into a Word document.
Discover what more you can do with Acrobat to edit, convert, and share PDF documents.
