Tips on converting massive Word doc?

[Vardiss]

I'm looking to convert a very large book (600+ pages and growing) from Word 2007 to OOo Writer.

The Word document was primarily created in Outline mode with each of the Chapter titles as Level 1 Headings and the individual chapters are subdocuments which originally load as links to the separate files.

It looks like the OOo path I want to take is to create a Master Document.

Do I do this by loading in all the Word subdocuments into one huge Word file, save it as OOo, and then File -> Send -> Create Master Document?

Or is there a better way to do it considering that I've already broken it up in Word?

[Hagar Delest]

Do I do this by loading in all the Word subdocuments into one huge Word file, save it as OOo, and then File -> Send -> Create Master Document?

You can, you'll be able to select the level of heading that OOo will use to break automatically the file in sub-documents.

But beware that the import may create lot of direct formatting. If the file still needs to be edited, perhaps pasting as unformatted text then reapplying the styles could be a more robust method for the future (but may require some time I guess).

Thanks to add '[Solved]' in your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[foxcole]

But beware that the import may create lot of direct formatting. If the file still needs to be edited, perhaps pasting as unformatted text then reapplying the styles could be a more robust method for the future (but may require some time I guess)

This is the best method, because the original file is Word 2007.

Even if it weren't, though, I'd recommend this method because every Word page becomes an individual page style in Writer, and every character style and paragraph style also becomes a separate style in Writer. This would tremendously bloat the file size of an already large file, because the styles are defined and stored within the document. Also, a master document requires good control of styles for a clean presentation of the sub documents, so I couldn't guarantee how well it would work with all these extra style definitions.

So, yes, it will take some time to go through and apply the correct styles in the document and then convert it to a master document, but I think in the end it will save time over having to trim out all the extraneous styles and make sure correct styles are applied, and trying to figure out why some things might not work as expected, especially if the document includes graphics or other objects.