I have around 100 separate Google Docs files that I need to consolidate into one master document. The manual copy and paste approach is taking way too long and I’m losing all the comments that were made on the original documents.
I’m looking for a more efficient method to combine all these documents while preserving the formatting and comments. Has anyone found a good solution for this? Maybe there’s a Google Apps Script or some other automated way to handle this bulk merging task?
Any suggestions would be really helpful since doing this manually is going to take forever.
I faced a similar challenge when bringing together several project plans. Using Google Apps Script is indeed a viable solution, as it can automate the consolidation effectively. However, be mindful that while the main text formats can be preserved, comments are not automatically included in the merged document. In my case, I processed the texts using the script and then cross-checked the documents that contained essential comments manually. This approach allowed me to save substantial time compared to traditional methods. If your documents are formatted consistently, you might also consider merging them via Google Sheets before finalizing your document in Google Docs, although this might limit complex formatting.
Had to deal with this exact problem when consolidating quarterly reports from different departments. What worked for me was creating a master document first, then using the Insert menu to add each Google Doc as a linked file. This preserves most formatting and you can choose whether to link or break the connection afterward. The downside is you still need to do this somewhat manually, but it’s much faster than copy-paste and maintains document integrity better. For the comments issue, I exported the original docs as Word files first since those preserve comments better during merging processes. It’s not perfect but saved me hours compared to pure manual work.
honestly, i’d try the google workspace marketplace first - there’s some addons that do document merging without needing to code anything. i remember using one called ‘merge docs’ or something similar last year and it worked pretty well for combining around 50 files. way easier than scripting if ur not comfortable with apps script.