Data merge question

[saphil]

I have an arbitrary data file with 20 categories and 3000 rows.
I want to use it to build a catalog with paypal links.
I thought the mailmerge function might work, however mailmerge only works with its own internal data source and it is understandably limited to name and address block data fields.

I have my base document in .txt format
and a data file in .ods format. I can convert the data files to csv or whatever works.

Can OpenOffice.org perform this or should I just roll on to something else?

[acknak]

Yes, OOo can almost certainly do it. However, it's not like falling off a log: it will take you some time to get it to do what you want.

I don't know of anything that will do it any better or easier, except for Office.

[saphil]

how?

Is there an automated way to pack the ooo datasource thingy?

[acknak]

"How?" Yep, that's the million dollar question.

Unfortunately, it's just not trivial to walk you through it from scratch in a forum like this.

There are some tutorials around the web, but I don't have a list. None of them are a single-source how-to-do-it: there are just too many options and situations in real projects.

Maybe someone else has a good resource in mind. The "Merge" chapter in the Writer Guide is not a bad place to start.

The basic steps are:
1) Get your data into a data source you can register in OOo. The data need to be in a single table form (which could be a query over several tables). That means that each row of the table should have everything you need for that item in the catalog.
2) Create the catalog document in Writer, with fields for each item from a data row.
3) Merge the data

Doesn't sound so bad, but there are a hundred options and pitfalls under each one

What is your final product? A paper document? A PDF? A web page?

[JohnV]

Are you just trying to get a listing of all the records in .txt file into a Writer document? If so, is the .txt file set up something like this?

Catagory1 Catagory2 CatagoryETC
data.........more......data
some........more......data

[saphil]

My final outcome is about 2000 web pages like this
http://nynotary.com/i-Stamp_IS-05
This was not trivial to produce from a time standing, but the output of the html on the page is the original doc from which the final pieces can be done.