how do I open an embeded word doc without word?

Because I got curious, and I'm at work with a PC, I investigated. In Word 2016 for Windows, if you go to the Insert tab and then click Object over at the right of the ribbon, you get this dialogue box:

If you stay on the Create New tab and select Word Document, Word opens a new Word file where you can type up the text you want. When you save this new file, Word then embeds that in the first file as a Word object.

If you switch to the Create from File tab, you can browse for the desired file, and that will get embedded into the first file as a Word object. Word displays the first page of the embedded doc with a grey highlight. Double-click it, and Word opens the file. That behaviour makes me wonder if the whole file was actually embedded, so I saved the first file, which had only a couple of lines of text. The file size is over 2 mb, which about the size of the second doc, so I guess it really is embedded.

@blue4dolphin, glad that LibreOffice was able to open your file. I'd appreciate it if you'd go back and mark that suggestion as helpful.

happy holidays!

Guy

I believe that this is the first instance of marsupializing a Word document within another Word document that I have heard about. You may need the version of Word that was used to achieve this, as I have my doubts that LibreOffice is designed to access both documents. Pages certainly is not.

I tried to duplicate such a document in Word, and it isn't possible. There are various to add a Word document to another open document, but all it does is add the text from the second doc. There's no embedding to a remote file, or the second document being treated like an attachment.

Now, an embedded file such as a PDF or picture I can see as being a problem. I tried inserting both a PDF and image. Preview only shows the text of the document. But it also gives you no clue at all a PDF or image is part of the file, so there's no way for you to know it's there in the first place.

Hmm, I wonder how the PC user managed to do that? I've tried every method online I could find for bringing one Word doc into another, and none of them result in an embedded file.

Though it very well could be a Windows thing. While the latest version of Office for Mac is much closer to feature parity with the Windows version than it ever was in Office 2011 or earlier, the Windows version of Office still has features that don't exist in the Mac version.

Ah! I did see that field, but since none of the sites I found even mentioned it, I didn't investigate it any further.

Yup, I can choose a Word document as the object to embed, then click From File and choose another doc. What comes in then is not text, but an embedded block that looks like the other document. Double clicking the block opens a separate Word document window you can edit, but is not editable until you do that.

Very true. Why is that option there in the first place? I understand embedded/linked Excel files (you update the data in the Excel document and it's automatically reflected in the Word document). But Word in Word? What's the point?

Download LibreOffice or OpenOffice. They're both free, and will read/write Word docs (and other MS Office docs, too).

Regards,

Guy

Sorry, left out something. Is that doc really embedded, or just linked? If it's just linked, you need the file the link points to.

Guy

Excellent! For being open source, LibreOffice and OpenOffice are darn good software.

Of course, no corporation with any sane document and data policy should allow for embedding of Word objects in another Word document.

I can't think of any useful reason for this "feature." Seems like just another opportunity to create havoc down the road if the file glitches, as Word docs sometimes do.

Me either. I sure wouldn't embed a Word document within another one. Bring in the content.