One reference list but several word documents?

I have a manuscript and its reference list in one doc-file. However, the journal prefers tables as separate documents. Therefore I have three table documents. The problem is that I have references in the tables. Right now I have 1+3 reference lists even if some references appears in both tables and manuscript text. For example one reference could have one number in the manuscript file, another in the first table and yet another in the next table. Some references just appear in one table.

Is there any way to solve the problem and get all references in the same reference list?

I would appreciate any suggestions,

Kind regards,

Caroline

I can think of lots of ways, but the quick and dirty way I  would use is below. 

You need to save the 4 documents in a safe place, and using copies of the 4 files, ad the tables to the manuscript part.  Combine the tables into that document (I usually unformat them back to their curly bracketed stage,  unformating them first, and deleting the “bibliographies”), and then reformat the bibliography.  Unlink the fields in that copy, and copy/cut the tables back into separate documents  and submit the 4 separate unlinked documents…   Keep the original 4  files (or a linked version of the combined document) in case you need to revise the original.