Turning multiple MS Word files into one single manuscript file

Dog Ear prefers that your manuscript is submitted to us as a single MS Word file - not individual chapter files. This avoids unintended errors and quite possibly additional cost.

Combining multiple MS Word files into a single file is fairly easy - and we've outlined the process below.

Step 1 - Open the first file or chapter for your book

Step 2 - Go to the end of that file - in MS Word Windows you can press CTRL - END to get there quickly.

Step 3 - Insert a Section / Page Break - go to Insert / Break (in MS Word 2007 you'll go to the Insert / Pages / Page Break tab set.)

Inserting a Page Break / Section break preserves the formatting in your manuscript better than just skipping to Step 6.

Step 4 - Choose the break type - choose Section break / Next Page

Step 5 - After inserting the break, you should be automatically on the 'new' page

Step 6 - Insert the next chapter / file for your book. In Word 98, 2001, 2003 you choose Insert / File. In MS Word 2007 and later you choose Insert / Object / Text from File and then select the file to insert.

Step 8 - Go to the new end of your manuscript and repeat steps 1 - 8 for each additional file.

Step 9 - Save the file under a new name so that you don't overwrite your original file - something like "MyBook_all_chapters.doc" is great. Your file naming doesn't really matter to us as long as we only get a single manuscript file.