Automatic size of fields in form document

Creating and using forms
Post Reply
MPEcho
Posts: 99
Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2016 11:30 pm

Automatic size of fields in form document

Post by MPEcho »

Greetings:

I have several writer documents that use the mail merge facility to import data from my database.

What I am trying to do now is convert those documents (or rewrite) as form documents so that I can use the form and subforms to control what is displayed in the document. While I can insert fields anchored as characters, I can't find a way to make the fields resize to fit the contents. Does anyone know a way to do this?
Libre Office 5.1.6.2 Ubuntu 16.04
F3K Total
Volunteer
Posts: 1038
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2011 8:20 pm

Re: Automatic size of fields in form document

Post by F3K Total »

Hello,
IMPOV an unnecessary approach.
Why not filling the datas for each mail into the database, then maybe use a query or view to combine them as desired, one row for each letter.
Then mail merge all in one step.
That's the intend of mail merge.
R
  • MMove 1.0.6
  • Extension for easy, exact positioning of shapes, pictures, controls, frames ...
  • my current system
  • Windows 10 AOO, LOLinux Mint AOO, LO
MPEcho
Posts: 99
Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2016 11:30 pm

Re: Automatic size of fields in form document

Post by MPEcho »

F3K Total wrote:Hello,
IMPOV an unnecessary approach.
Why not filling the datas for each mail into the database, then maybe use a query or view to combine them as desired, one row for each letter.
R
Even though I referred to mail merge, I was referring to the tool, not that I am trying to accomplish a mail merge.

What I have is several tables in the DB with one to many relationships. A much simplified version would be like this:

Project

Code: Select all

PID | Mgr_PersID | Project name | detail | detail2 | . . .
People

Code: Select all

PersID | PID | name | address | role1 | role 2 | etc . . .   
(Note; This is NOT good design and I know it. But it works and fixing it is not what this post is about.)

There is a filter table to select the project and queries that extract project info and manager info into a one line record as you suggest. There are two other queries that generate a list of people in roll1 and another for roll2. I need to be able to have documents that have the project details entered at a variety of spots, then list all the roll1 people and contact info, then more text and list all the roll2 people. Basically, to "merge" I have to open data sources, select the project query, and click data to fields, then find the roll1_query, select all records and click data to fields, then the same for roll 2.

I can do all of the same using form controls in the document. It needs to look like a word-processed document though.
Libre Office 5.1.6.2 Ubuntu 16.04
Post Reply