When I was working as a technical writer, I had to use Microsoft Word for some large, complex documents. Word has a feature called Master Documents that is supposed to be useful for that situation, but I didn't use it, as Master Documents were notorious for corrupting files and losing your work. (I have heard that some writers used them successfully, but they had complete control over document templates and formatting; that was not the environment in which I was working.)
You would think that given how much Microsoft is pushing OneDrive, that it would be compatible with Master documents, but you'd be wrong.
The feature handles the master and sub-documents moving location well but only if they are local folders on the computer. Assuming all the files are in the one folder (a very wise move), you can move all the files to another folder. Open the Master Document and you can see the sub-document links like this.
Move those document to another folder on the computer and Word will change the links for you.
But watch what happens if we move those same documents to OneDrive (strictly, moved to the \OneDrive\ folders on the local computer). Word completely loses track.
Apparently, it's been this way for a long time and Microsoft hasn't shown any indication that it will be fixed any time soon.
My solution was to create a container document that used REF fields to pull in the subdocuments. It was more work to set up than using the Master Documents feature but reliable as long as I was careful. I did write a guide for our other writers and developers and perhaps I will publish that here as it may be helpful to some.
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