Firstly may I thanks everyone that has offered me advice.



Secondly in answer to macropod who stated the following.

"There seems to be a disconnect here, between your claims and professed abilities. If you can't tell what a source file might be and what a destination file might be, I suggest you ask someone who can teach you the basics of computer use, because this is really basic stuff."

I have made no claims and professed no abilities however your use of the terms, "source file" and "destination file" has given me a start point and thanks for that. As soon as I typed, "source file" into the Internet it became clear to me this a bit more complicated than someone with my level of knowledge can cope with so I looked at what egrospe17 suggested which is as follows.

step 1: Gather all your files in one folder
step 2: Open the doc you want to consolidate it IN
step 3: Click insert > object > text from file
step 4: It will open a dialogue box to select the other word documents you have. If you have multiple documents, click one file and hold the control key and then click the rest of the files.
Step 5: Click ok.

There is a lesson in that suggestion I will have to learn which is be more careful with your records.

You suggest finding someone who can teach me the basics but at 80 years of age I don't think that I have sufficient time left to benefit from that technique. I doubt that one in a hundred computer users developed their knowledge that way, they do it by opening a PC up and playing around with it and when they get stuck they come to forums such as this which is what I have done but thank you for taking the time to offer suggestions.