I'm responsible for compiling monthly management reports; that is, I collect different sub-reports from all of the team members and combine them into one report.
Each member reports on a different topic. The topics are arranged numerically (outline style).
I sent to each member a Word file displaying the Topic Title they are meant to report about.
When I receive the reports, I have to manually organize them according the the TOC.
Can somebody be kind enough to recommend a way I can somehow automate this process? Is there someway I can tell Word to remember to insert all of John's comments in John's areas of the monthly report, and remember to insert all of Jill's comments into Jill areas, etc.? Is there a way I can tell Word to "pair up" the contents of each member's file and automatically place them into the final report?
Thanks so much for your assistance.

Lots of ways.

Sent out the files e.g, John.doc, Jill.doc etc. and when returned, put them is a common directory e.g., C:\Reports

In your master report use IncludeText fields:

E.g., Where John's stuff goes { INCLUDETEXT "C:\\Reports\\John.doc" }

__________________
Greg Maxey
Please visit my web site at http://www.gregmaxey.com/

Thanks Greg for that invaluable insight.
If I understand correctly, in order to use INCLUDETEXT field, I would first need to go into each source doc and to bookmark the text and then tell the target doc to use that bookmark name.
However, I receive about 10 different documents for each monthly reporting period. Do I need to go into each one and bookmark only the text I want each month? Is there any way to tell the people reporting their reports to bookmark it themselves?
Also, after the target doc is updated and contains all of the source docs, I then need to add outline numbering for each topic reported. Is there a way I can tell Word to assign a different number to each sub-report (source doc)?
Thanks so much for even more invaluable advice.

You would only need a bookmarks in the situation where you only want to use a part or parts of John or Jill's reports. e.g.,

I. Introduction.
II. My part.
III. Part of John's part, blah, blah, blah, another part of John's part.
IV. Jills part.

In III you would need bookmarks: INCLUDETEXT "C:\\Reports\\John.doc" Part A} blah, blah, blah INCLUDETEXT "C:\\Reports\\John.doc" Part B }.

So the idea would be to keep John and Jills templates bare bone (i.e., needed data only, no fluff.). Perhaps a table where only the data cells are bookmarked.

Your master template should have the numbering, like I've shown above.

__________________
Greg Maxey
Please visit my web site at http://www.gregmaxey.com/

If I would use a table for a template for them, how could I keep the data cells bookmarked without having the users incidentally erasing them?

You can lead a horse to water (train them not to delete the bookmarks). You can't make them drink. However, I know what I would do. If these people failed to cooperate, I would delagate the report preparation to one of them ;-)

__________________
Greg Maxey
Please visit my web site at http://www.gregmaxey.com/

okay, but what's that idea about bookmarking data cells? do you mean creating a table say with 2 columns, bookmarking one of them and expect Word to include text into the adjacent cell?

No. Your table might be four or five rows:

Row 1: Jill, tell me how many widgets you procuded this month
Row 2: (This row is bookmarked and Jill enters 500)
Row 3: Jill, tell me this or that
Row 4: (This row is bookmarked and Jill enteres this or that.)

__________________
Greg Maxey
Please visit my web site at http://www.gregmaxey.com/

i understand now.
There's no way to lock the bookmark from becoming erased, protect it somehow?
Once Jill starts typing in the cell, the bookmark won't get erased?

I find that in order to create a bookmark for some text, I must first select the text and then create a bookmark (while the text is highlighted). Is there anyway around this??