I would like to set up a word document such that the document has embedded in it another document shrunk down a bit to make room for additional comments and information which I will add on the side. I've been looking to see if word 2007 has this feature but have had difficulty finding it. Is it possible to take an entire document and insert it as a resizeable object into another?

Some of my research suggests that I might be able to accomplish something of this nature with publisher, and while several people in my office do not have publisher and we'd prefer if it were doable in word, instructions for publisher would be appreciated as well if Word 2007 cannot do this.

Hi,

Thank you for using  Word IT Pro Discussions forum. 

From your description, I understand that  you would like to know to how to add a Word document into another Word document in Word 2007, and you can make some comments besides the embedded Word documents. If there is any misunderstanding, please feel free to let me know.

 Thank you for your inquiring.

To insert a Word document to another Word document in Word 2007, follow the steps below:

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1.       In the Word document, click the Insert tab.

2.       Click the Object in the Text group.

3.       Click object. Then click the Create from file tab.

4.       Click the Browse button to select the Word document. Also, check the checkboxes before: Link to file and Display as icon.

5.       Click OK to save the settings.

Please take your time to try the suggestions and let me know the results at your earliest convenience. If anything is unclear or if there is anything I can do for you, please feel free to let me know.

Best Regards,

Sally Tang

You can copy text from one document and use Paste Special to insert it into another as an embedded Word Document. Each embedded document is, however, confined to one page on the containing document.

You could alternatively use the {INCLUDETEXT} field to merge the text of the first document into the second. If you put the field in a table (2 columns by 1 row) you could use the other column for your comments and resize the columns and text as appropriate.

If you want the embedded document to look like printed pages you should consider using PDF, TIF or PNG images of each page which could be inserted into your containing document and shrunk to the appropriate size to fit your comments around.

If you use Paste Special to embed (and link) several individual pages you could make it look something like you want yet still have the linked data update automatically but it may not look exactly right and could be quite a "fragile" document that may break under repeated editing.

Can I ask why you think you want to do this? What is your goal and how are the resulting documents going to be used? Understanding these aspects might suggest better alternatives.

To add to the feature you explained, is there any way to insert a multiple page document into another. Also, is there a way to search the document imported from the original

Easiest way to merge two word documents is to use Adobe Acrobat sadly.  Print the Word docs to PDF.  Merge the PDFs together in Acrobat. Then, within Acrobat, save as a Word doc (important to turn off OCR in the setting).  Works beautifully.  Sure would be nice it this was doable from within Microsoft's own products...