How to Embed Existing Files into Microsoft Word

Have you ever had to create a report in Microsoft Office? For most people, the report ended up as several separate documents. They could be either Power Point presentations, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, or a combination of all three. This leaves you creating links to the files within your main document, or does it? Why not embed your supporting files and documents within this one file instead of keeping up with multiple documents? This is the perfect option for people needing to send the report as an email attachment. No need to attach anything other than the main document. Follow the steps below to create the perfect report with other Office files embedded.

The following steps apply to Microsoft Office 2000, XP, and 2003. Since most reports are written in Word, the first set of steps will focus on embedding documents inside a Word document.

1) Open the main document or report in Microsoft Word.

2) Click the Insert menu to display inserting options. This will be located at the top of your screen, underneath the title bar.

3) Choose Object. If this does not appear, look for a double arrow at the bottom of the menu. This will expand the menu to view options you do not frequently use.

4)This will open a dialog box. You are presented with two tabs: Create New and Create from File. (Since this particular tutorial is just for the basics of combining your report into one main file, I will focus just on the Create from File option. Please check for more tutorials on Microsoft Office for more in-depth information)

a. Create New allows you to create a new document or even image of your choosing from the list within that tab.

b. Create from File allows you to browse to a file you have already created.

5) Choose Create from File and click Browse to locate your file.

6) You have several options as to how to insert your file.

a. If you do not check the check boxes below Browse, the entire contents of your document will be displayed within your current document.

b. If you check the box, Link to File, you insert the entire contents of the file, but can click the link to open the file separately in its own window or application. For instance, inserting an Excel document will display the spreadsheet. When you click on the spreadsheet, it will open in Excel as a separate document.

c. If you check the box, Display as Icon, only an icon will appear in your document. This option allows you to change the icon and its caption. Clicking the button, Change Icon will give you the opportunity to change the caption to something other than the file path. For instance, you may have a spreadsheet as Figure 2. You can change the caption to Figure 2, so readers know what they are clicking. Upon clicking the icon, the file opens in its appropriate application.

7) No matter which option you choose, the file is now embedded once you have clicked OK.

Just to clarify, you will only need to deal with the main document at this point. You can format it to better work around the option you chose. You can delete the extra files at this point since they are completely embedded in your main file. As a word of caution, please test this BEFORE you delete the files from your recycle bin.

Enjoy impressing your teacher, boss, or co-workers with this new way of creating a streamlined report.