How to Merge Word Documents? – 3 Easy Methods
(This guide on how to merge word documents is suitable for all Microsoft Word versions, including Office 365)
Imagine you are working on documenting a certain product as a team. Each individual in the team has their part ready to be documented, and they are working from their respective locations and devices.
In other cases, you might have data under different Word documents like a monthly report sheet or a weekly checklist. You’d want to consolidate them into a single file for easy sharing and exporting options.
Though separated, some documents need to be consolidated as a single file for validation. This makes it easy to search through and retrieve data. Also, merging Word documents helps reduce the space occupied and mitigates the file clutter.
In this article, I will tell you how to merge Word documents in 3 easy ways.
3 Easy Ways to Merge Word Documents
Merging separate Word documents into a single consolidated file can be done using 3 simple methods.
Copying and Pasting
This is one of the most well-known and straightforward approaches to merging different Word documents into one. In this method, you can copy the file from one Word document and paste them into another Word document to create a consolidated file.
- Copy the data from one document by right-clicking and selecting Copy on the selected content or by pressing Ctrl + C.
- When pasting, you can press the shortcut keys Ctrl + V to paste. For additional pasting options, right-click and select any of the Paste Special options (Keep Source Formatting, Merge Formatting, Picture, or Keep Text Only).
- Or, click on the Paste drop-down from the Clipboard section under the Home tab to access the different Paste options.
One advantage of this method is that it gives you the flexibility to either keep or change the formatting of the copied data.
However, there are a few drawbacks to this method. This method is helpful when the number of documents to merge is smaller. If there are multiple documents, then merging documents by copying and pasting becomes a time-consuming and difficult process.
In such cases, you can use the below-given method.
Using the Text from File Option
This is a very helpful and beneficial method to merge Word documents in one go.
- To merge the files, open a new Word document or an existing Word document. This will serve as the template upon which the other files will be merged.
- Navigate to Insert. Under the Text section, click on the dropdown from Object and select Text from File.
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- Now, navigate to the file location and by holding the Ctrl key on your keyboard, select multiple documents.
Note: One prerequisite when using this method is to make sure the Word documents are all saved in the same folder before using the Text to File option.
- Click on Insert.
- This combines multiple Word files into a single Word document.
Using this method, you can add any number of documents but make sure all the Word files are stored in the same folder.
Using Online Tools
If you think searching for and going through certain steps to merge Word documents is a bit complex, you can easily use any online third-party tools. These tools help merge multiple documents in a single go.
However, online third-party tools need an active internet connection and a web browser to merge Word files.
All you need to do is select the documents, upload the files, and click on Merge. Once they are merged, you can easily download them to your local storage.
Some online Word merge tools are:
Merge Different Versions of Word Files into a Single Document
When many people are working on a Word document, there might be multiple versions of the same document. These versions can also be merged into a single document using the below-given method.
- First, navigate to the Review tab. Click on the dropdown from Combine.
This opens the Combine Documents dialog box.
- From the Original document dropdown, select the original document. You can either choose the file from the dropdown or browse the file.
- From the Revised document dropdown, choose the file containing the changes.
- Click on the More button to view the additional Comparison setting to compare and contrast the changes in the Original and Revised documents.
- You can also enable to show changes at the Character level or Word level. You can also show the changes either in the original, revised, or new document.
- Once you click OK, the two versions of the document are combined into a single document. You can see the revisions and the corresponding changes in both files.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to keep the formatting of the data while merging?
One way to maintain the formatting of multiple documents is by copying and pasting the contents from one Word document to another document using the Paste Special option.
How to merge multiple Word documents into one document?
To merge multiple Word documents, navigate to Insert. Under the Text section, click on the dropdown from Object and select Text from File. Now, navigate to the file location and by holding the Ctrl key on your keyboard, select multiple documents. Click on Insert.
Is there a way to merge different versions of Word documents into a single document?
First, navigate to the Review tab. Click on the dropdown from Combine. This opens the Combine Documents dialog box. From the Original document dropdown, select the original document. You can either choose the file from the dropdown or browse the file. From the Revised document dropdown, choose the file containing the changes.
Closing Thoughts
Merging Word documents can be an effective way to keep your files organized and reduce disk space. It also facilitates easy sharing and exporting of documents.
In this article, we saw how to merge Word documents in 3 easy ways. You can choose to copy and paste, use the Text from File option, or use online tools. You can also merge two different versions of the Word file.
For more high-quality guides on MS Word or Excel, please visit our free resources section.
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Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel and other business software for over ten years. For a low monthly fee, you can get access to 150+ IT training courses.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!