Merge Word Documents (Combine DOCX Files or Split by Headings)

About the Merge Word Documents (Combine DOCX Files or Split by Headings)

Merge Word Documents puts several .docx files together into one real Word document — not a copy of their text. Each file keeps its paragraphs, tables, pictures, charts, text boxes, footnotes, comments and tracked changes; numbered lists start again where each file starts; and every file stays in a section of its own, so its page size, margins, columns, headers and footers are its own. Drag the files into the order you want, then choose how each one starts (a new page, an odd page or straight after the previous one), whether styles of the same name share the first file’s look, and whether to add a heading per file and a table of contents.

The reverse works too: Split one file cuts a long document at each Heading 1 (or Heading 1 and 2), at each page break or at each section, and names every new file after its heading. Everything runs in your browser; the files are never uploaded. Without a pass the result is a free preview: you see its first pages laid out under a watermark, and the files download with a pass or after unlocking this result.

Common uses

• Assembling a thesis, a tender or a book from chapters in separate files.
• Combining monthly reports, minutes or letters into one document to send or print.
• Adding a cover letter, a contract and its annexes into a single Word file.
• Splitting a long manual or a combined batch of letters into one file per chapter or per letter.

What a real merge keeps

A .docx file is a package of parts (Office Open XML, ECMA-376): the text in one part, and styles, lists, pictures, headers, footnotes and comments in others, linked by relationship ids. Copying text from one file into another loses those links. This tool copies each later file’s body with every part it points to and gives each one a new name and id, so:

• pictures, charts, SmartArt and embedded objects come along (a picture used in two files is stored once);
• footnotes, endnotes and comments are renumbered through the whole document, and so are bookmarks, revisions, drawing ids and the paragraph ids comment replies refer to, so nothing clashes even when two files come from one template;
• lists are copied with new list ids, so a numbered list in the second file starts at 1 again instead of continuing the first file’s;
• bookmarks that two files share get a new name, and the links and cross-references (REF, PAGEREF) to them follow.

The merged file is checked before you see it: every relationship must point to a part that exists and every part must have its type, or nothing is saved.

One look, or keep each file’s formatting

• One look works like Word’s “Use destination styles”: where a later file has a style of the same name (Normal, Heading 1, a company style), the first file’s definition is used, so the whole document looks consistent. Styles only later files have are added. Styles are matched by their name, so a file made in a German or French Word, whose Heading 1 has another id, still matches.
• Keep each file’s formatting keeps every file’s look: a style that is defined differently comes over under its own name, such as “Heading 1 (Report)”, and text that used the file’s default style and default font gets them explicitly, so it does not take the first file’s defaults. Identical styles are still shared.

Sections, headers and page numbers

Each file becomes one or more sections of the result, ending with its own section properties, so its page size, orientation, margins, columns and headers and footers stay its own. A file without a header or footer of its own gets an empty one, rather than showing the previous file’s (which is what Word would otherwise do). Page numbers continue through the whole document, or start again at 1 with each file when you tick that option.

Splitting a document

Split one file cuts the document where you choose: at each Heading 1, at each Heading 1 and 2, at each manual page break (Ctrl+Enter, or a paragraph set to start on a new page) or at each section break. Text before the first heading becomes “Opening pages”. Each new file keeps the original’s styles, lists and settings, the section layout and headers its part had (inherited ones too), and only the footnotes, comments and pictures its own text uses. A bookmark that would be cut in two is removed (its text stays), and a document is never cut inside a field such as a table of contents.

Limitations

• Old Word 97–2003 files (.doc), OpenDocument text (.odt) and files with a password to open can’t be read: open them in Word, LibreOffice or Google Docs and save them as .docx first.
• Settings that apply to a whole document — the theme, document defaults with One look, “different odd and even pages”, compatibility options — come from the first file.
• Macros are never copied (the result is a plain .docx), and fonts embedded in later files are not carried over: text in those fonts shows in that font where it is installed.
• The table of contents is a real Word field: it lists the headings at once, and Word fills in the page numbers when it asks to update the fields on opening (answer Yes). LibreOffice and Google Docs update it from their own menus.
• Content controls bound to a later file’s custom XML data keep their text but no longer update from that data.
• Up to 60 files and 600 MB together; very large documents are limited by your device’s memory. The check under the result shows the first 60 pages of a long document.

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