How To Merge Text Files

Transcript:

If your manuscript is not contained in one continuous file, your files will need to be merged before we can begin the production of your book. If you’d like to merge the files yourself, here’s how.

How to Merge Files

Open a new blank document, and before you do anything with it, save it as a new file. I’m going to call my new file ‘My Complete Manuscript’. Now we’re ready to merge our first file into our new document. Just go to ‘Insert’ and ‘File’. In the window that pops up, locate the first file we need to merge. For my example, I have each chapter saved as an individual file, so the first file I need is ‘Chapter 1’. I select it, and then I click ‘Insert’. I have now brought my first file into the new document.

To merge the rest of your files, you just repeat the same step for each file. Make sure your text insertion marker is positioned at the end of the document where you want each new file to be merged. In my example, our marker is already flashing there, so I’m ready to merge my second file. I’m just going to go to ‘Insert’ and ‘File’, and then select my second file. While I’m at it, I’m going to go ahead and bring in my third file, and then we’ll take a look at what we’ve done…

Okay. If I scroll up through my new document, I see the start of Chapter 3 and Chapter 2, and at the beginning, I see Chapter 1. I’ve successfully merged the first three chapters of my book into one continuous file.

Making Chapters Start on New Pages

If I want my chapters to begin on new pages, all I need to do is position my cursor and click before the chapter title, and then go to ‘Insert’ and ‘Break’. In the window that pops up, I select ‘Page Break’ and ‘Ok’. This will bump my chapter to the next page.

If you have any questions about file merging, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 1-888-795-4274. We’ll be happy to talk about it with you.