Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I am beginner w program using Mac. I have tried to create labels and as far as i can see everything I have done is correct. I created database on openoffice but I cannot get the template to syncronize with the database. No data is imported. Have redone 5 times and can't figure out why not working. any help appreciated

Welcome to the forum.

Search this forum, or the Writer forum with labels or mail merge for many posts.

As a new poster you will find much useful information in the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials, the up to date Writer guide and the Writer Manual. May I suggest you bookmark the pages.

See Chapter 11 - Using Mail Merge. You need three things:

1 A spreadsheet .ods file containing all the data to be merged
2 A database .odb file which acts as the interface - it MUST be registered
3 A text document .odt file into which you wish to merge everything.

Press F1 to access the Help screen and search for your problem

The chapter headings in the manual are:

1 - Introducing Writer
2 - Setting up Writer
3 - Working with Text
4 - Formatting Pages
5 - Printing, Exporting, Faxing and E-Mailing
6 - Introduction to Styles
7 - Working with Styles
8 - Working with Graphics
9 - Working with Tables
10 - Working with Templates
11 - Using Mail Merge
12 - Tables of Contents, Indexes and Bibliographies
13 - Working with Master Documents
14 - Working with Fields
15 - Using Forms in Writer
16 - Customizing Writer – Keyboard shortcuts.

When a pop-up window opens, click the Help button for extensive help on that function - it is often more comprehensive than the manual.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

Thanks for all the info. I printed the chapter on Using Mail Merge. I created a spreadsheet w my address data in OpenOffice Calc; I registered the data source; I went to file>new>labels and set up everything. All I get is a file that has all the data field ids but no data from the file. I click view data sources the data is right there but it will not appear in the document. four hours and nothing! really frustrated. Have done everything 5x.

Turn off View-->Field Names CTRL+F9.

The grey fields are placeholders for database values. If your list contains 600 rows and there are 6 labels per page, you get 100 pages filled with all the addresses. Therefore you won't see any data in before doing the actual print-out.
When you are going to print this, you get the following question:

Your document contains address database fields. Do you want to print a form letter?

Answer <Yes> and you get a dialog where you may specify if you want to print all the list rows or just a selection of it and if you want to send it to a printer or print to file(s).

It works! I didn't want to print "form letter", I wanted labels. Who'd a thunk. Thank you, thank you. Finally going to print my labels.