I received a project which involves getting together separate folders for each member. All their names are listed in an excel spreadsheet. I'm told merging files using word would be a good tool for this project. I am not sure what this does or how this may help.

I suspect this will take some macro coding, but let's get some more information.

What type of files are in each member's folders? Spreadsheets, Word documents?

Where do you want the results? In a spreadsheet or in a Word document?

Basically, Word has the concept of a Master document that can be used to collect multiple documents into a single master document. This may work for you.

The merge function in Word is "Mail Merge" that is used to pull a list of recipients from one source and put that into a document to be mailed out (email or hard copy). This doesn't quite sound like what you need.

So if you can provide a little more information about your input and the expected output, we may be able to help you out.