Subdocuments locked - how to unlock?

[Hans Petter Høie]

My students are about to deliver a paper one of these
days. Typically the paper consists of up to 6 chapters
and 80 - 100 pages.
Some groups have chosen to divide this task into
chapters, where each group member contribute with one
finished chapter.

These dokumentes are then put into a master document,
whereupon a TOC is generated.

Some groups have difficulties with subdocuments being
locked while finishing the Master Document. The help-
function indicates that the user might have trigged the
lock-subdocument function etc. Anyway, there are no tools
for unlocking a locked subdocument. Further I have not
noticed any procedures for avoiding this situation or any
how-to's to unlock a subdocument within the help system.

My own way out of this is this:

1 Produce a new Master Document
2 Include the subdocuments AND choose the Master Document
view AND delete the subdocuments.

This works, having that the user has used the styles
consistently. Hereby there are no subdocuments to be
locked.

Still, the problem is not solved. Ideally I would expect
the system to dynamically handle locking/unlocking
subdocuments without deleting the subdocuments.

Anyone who knows how to do this?

 

[Charles Kenyon]

--
"Master Document" is a term of art in Word referring to a "feature" that not
only doesn't work but also destroys documents. The consensus (with the
limited exception of Steve Hudson) among those offering advice on these
newsgroups is that using the Master Document feature is a sure way to
destroy your document. It can destroy parts of your document that you are
not even working on! I think John McGhie said it succinctly when he said
that there are two kinds of Master Documents: Those that are corrupt and
those that will be corrupt soon. See <URL:
http://www.addbalance.com/word/masterdocuments.htm> for information on the
Master Document feature and workarounds. (This page also has a link to Steve
Hudson's chapter on how he gets Master Documents to work.) See <URL:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt.htm> for more
information on what goes wrong, and <URL:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RecoverMasterDocs.htm> for ideas on
how to salvage what you can.


--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Hans Petter Høie]

Thank you for Your reply. Interesting. My suggestion to a
solution here might thus be the one to take on, that is:
Use this feature to collect the subdocuments, turn them
into a new document and then delete the subdocuments.