Rotate a mail-merge

[Fostejam]

It doesn't look like this topic has come up since AOO 4.0 has come out so hopefully someone can help me.

Here's the situation:

I'm trying to print postcards on a 4up template sheet. Because the 4 postcards are on one sheet they are vertical, so my text needs to be vertical too.

To make this a little more complicated, all the text (except for the mail merge area) is part of a background image.

That image has a nice big area for me to put in my mail merge data and change the font and color so it looks like the rest of the card, the problem comes in when I try to add in the mail merge at a 90 degree angle.

Writer keeps pushing the mail merge field to the left align and will only let me move the text vertically and not horizontally so I can place it where it needs to go on the postcard.

I've tried placing it with a draw text box, but that doesn't seem to except the mail merge fields...

Anyone have any suggestions or work arounds?

[acknak]

Greetings and welcome to the community forum!

Such a job in OO Writer is difficult: Writer will fight you every step of the way.

Much better (in many cases) to handle the merge with one page of each card, and export the merged document as pdf. Then you can use the pdf viewer or other software to rotate and arrange four pages onto a single sheet.

[Fostejam]

Thanks Acknak.

I appreciate the help, unfortunately I'm talking about several hundred (up to a thousand) postcards a day, so working this page by page, even 4 at a time, would be impractical.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying?

[acknak]

It shouldn't require page by page attention. You should be able to configure a print layout (the number, orientation, and position of cards on the page) and let it go.

I can't tell you how to do that because I don't have hands on the software and the software I've used in the past is not really applicable here. But I do know it is possible and it ended up being far, far easier than trying to wrestle OO Writer into generating the final layout.

I'm hoping someone else here can provide some specific suggestions on how to do it.

Edit: PS:

Here's a quick & dirty sample (4xA6 onto A4) made this way. It didn't require any rotation but the concept is similar:

[mgroenescheij]

I'm trying to print postcards on a 4up template sheet. Because the 4 postcards are on one sheet they are vertical, so my text needs to be vertical too.

That's only truth if you have your paper size as portrait. You should be able to use the landscape layout and rotate your image.

Writer keeps pushing the mail merge field to the left align and will only let me move the text vertically and not horizontally so I can place it where it needs to go on the postcard.

You can insert the image as a background in a frame.
To have the text say 1 cm from the left use 2 columns where you set the width of the first column to 1 cm. Create a Paragraph Style for your text set the Text Flow as Insert Break Type=Column and Position=Before. Now if you start with a Return and start typing (or merging) your text it will position correct.

[John_Ha]

Does How to print 4x6 labels with words going the "long way" help?

Try searching the forum with rotate - I have responded to these posts which have the word rotate (done as an image)

If this solves the problem, please edit your original post title to [Solved].