I am trying to combine multiple chapters of my PhD thesis which are self contained separate documents with heading numbers for each chapter eg chapter 1 has 1.1, 1.2 etc. chapter 2 has 2.1, 2.2 etc etc.

I have a dilemma....

If I use the "insert text from file" tool then when the headers are imported Word 2007 assumes all the heading 2 items are the same and numbers them 2 and all the heading 3 items are the same. So that when I add a table of contents word thinks I only have 3 chapters but I actually have 6.

I was potentially thinking of using Adobe Acrobat to combine the documents but then have the issue that the figures for each chapter will be specific to that chapter ie figure 1 in chapter 2 and figure 1 in chapter 3.

Ideally I want to force the headings to sort themselves out in Word. Now besides from manually typing the headings in and as such manually creating a table of contents, is there any way of inserting a "list break" rather like a section break such that the numbering only applies to a certain section of the thesis ?

I have tried to change the numbering to start at 1 but it says that the number must be lower than the previous

It is rather confusing to explain but hopefully I have got my point across.

I have looked at using master documents but it starts messing around even more.

Any help would be much appreciated

Grant