How to merge documents in Pages using thumbnails?

Pages '09 v4.3 would allow you to copy/paste, or drag/drop thumbnails from one document into another document for effective document merging. It would also allow you to link to external Pages documents.

In Pages v5.6.1, you can select the paragraph text (not objects) of a donor document, and simply drag/drop the selection across into the recipient document. You can click on a thumbnail in the donor document, and paste it into the thumbnail gallery of the recipient document. As an example, my recipient document has a single thumbnail with partial text on that page. When I copy/paste the thumbnail from the donor document, it will fill the remaining page of the recipient document and start a new page in the same section, after the first page is filled. If the donor paragraph style is different than the recipient style, then remember to use Paste and Match Style. There is no drag/drop of thumbnail support between donor and recipient documents.

If you create a new, blank section in your recipient document, select it, and then copy/paste a thumbnail from the donor document, that text content is inserted into a new, default Text box with overflowing text in the center of your recipient section page. This departs with the behavior from the second paragraph, and type of paste operation does not change the outcome. I believe it should paste the content of the donor page into the document body of the recipient section — without a Text box. A workaround is to select the recipient document blank section thumbnail, and then drag over and drop a selection of donor document text.

Pages v5.6.1 will make you work harder at merging documents.