by Villeroy » Sat Oct 22, 2016 12:31 pm
OK, click somewhere in the table
menu:Table>Select>Table
menu:Edit>Copy [Ctrl+C]
menu:File>New>Spreadsheet
menu:Edit>PasteSpecial... [Ctrl+Shift+V]
Choose <Rich Text Format (RTF)>
menu:File>SaveAs...
Somewhere on the save dialog you find a button to create a new directory. Create a new directory, name it anyhow and navigate into the blank directory.
Choose file type <dBase (.dbf)>
Check "Automatic file name extension"
[OK]
menu:File>New>Database...
[X] Connect to existing database
Type: dBase
[X] Register this database
Save the database (.odb) somewhere, for instance in the same directory as the .dbf
So far we converted the Word table into a usable table format (dBase) and connected a so called "database document" to it.
Your address data are still in the dBase file and in your doc. The so called "database document" is just a "connector" with no data.
You may close all documents now if you want.
#############################################################################
Open your letter or your preferred template for letters.
menu:View>DataSources or hit F4 to show the data sources.
Double-click your database name, then [Tables] and click the one table in that database to show your data.
Notice that you can edit, insert, remove, filter and sort address data in this little window without opening any file.
Grab grey column headers one by one and drag them into your letter where needed. Alternatively: menu:Insert>Fields>Other...[Database]. The grey placeholders will be substituted with the actual table data when printing.
menu:File>Print... to start a test print into a document so we don't waste any ink and paper.
Confirm that you are going to print a serial letter.
Another dialog pops up. In the upper part you can filter and sort your addresses, choose if you want to print all of them or selected records only. In the lower part you can specify where to print to.
Print everything and choose <File> output into one document.
When you are done with the letter, remove any text that is specific to this particular letter and call
menu:File>Templates>Save... in order to save the serial letter for reuse.
############################################################################
Having a valid data source and a prepared letter template you open the template (menu:File>New>From Template) add your letter text, print, confirm the serial letter print, choose the right records and print.
If you want a new letter from scratch rather than template, write it down, hit F4 and drag column headers into the document.
############################################################################
If you want to add a new dBase table to the database, you can save a spreadsheet table with column headers as dBase file into the same directory or you can open the database document (.odb), switch to the tables section and let a wizard create the table for you.
The database document offers a lot more options which could be useful with many thousands of addresses.
P.S.
One more trick if you want to address a letter to one person:
Open your letter template, hit F4, select the person's address clicking the grey row header left of the first column and click the "data to fields" button on the toolbar above the data grid.
Please,
edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
Ubuntu 18.04, no OpenOffice, LibreOffice 6.4