Saving Documents

Since subdocuments are individual documents, they can be opened, edited, and saved on their own. The only restriction is that if a subdocument is locked within its master document, the subdocument is marked as read-only. It can be opened, but it cannot be saved over the original if any modifications are made. Of course, it’s easy enough to right-click the file in Windows Explorer, open the properties for the file, and turn off the read-only option, but I don’t recommend it. Usually, subdocuments are locked for a reason. See the section titled Section 17.5 for more on locking subdocuments.

If subdocuments are edited from inside the master document (either by typing directly into the master document or by opening the subdocuments from the master), they are automatically saved when you issue the Save command from the master document.

If the master document contains any newly created subdocuments that have not yet been edited, the files for them are created the first time the master document is saved after their creation. Word creates a separate document for each of the subdocuments in the same location as the master document.

The subdocuments are named based on the heading paragraphs at the top of the subdocument. If the folder already contains files by that name, Word appends the new subdocument file with a numeric extension. For this reason, it’s best to create the initial outline for the master with different heading names. This sounds obvious, but I’ve found ...

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