Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I am running Oo 1:3.1.1-5 on ubuntu and I am trying to do a manual mail merge. I have created a spreadsheet in open office and when I try to go File > Wizard > Address Data Source to register the data base there is no Address Data Source in the drop down menu??? Is there something else I need to do when I create the data base. It is just a basic spreadsheet with names and addresses, 1 piece of detail per column.

File>New>Database...
[X] Connect to existing database
Type: Spreadsheet
Point to your spreadsheet file
[X] Register the database
Save the database file
Now you can read the used areas of the spreadsheet's sheets as if they were database tables.

For several reasons, a spreadsheet (calculation grid) is the worst file format for an address list.
You may store your address list(s) in a dedicated directory in the dBase file format and connect a database to that directory.
Each dBase file in that directory can be used as an editable database table. You can edit the table(s) directly in the datasource window without opening any file.

Simple mail merge using Writer and Calc, I think I've got an idea! "database filename CANNOT have any spaces." PS If this is obvious to you, it wasn't to me--I didn't see it mentioned anywhere when I was struggling with it.

In front of a classroom of kids I couldn't get Mail Merge Wizard in Writer to un-grey Step 5 (something like that), the other hunch is that I had to have Saved the field-less letter before it would let me Create my little list of fields in Calc?? I had a hunch it was the database name having a space in. (This is perhaps so basic I am embarrassed). Dumb question: are spaces not allowed in a database name? I did my homework, and I've now got it working to show the kids on Monday. I'll forward any teacher my "teaching notes" handout for showing high schoolers how to merge a Writer document and Calc sheet with ease.

I was on the wrong track for a while--I thought, "This Mail Merge Wizard is thee dumbest thing going! because you HAVE to have an Inside Address ?!? and you HAVE to have a Salutation?? or the damn thing doesn't work?? you can't just dump fields--which is the obvious, transparent, anyone-can-do-that, thing one can do with merge--I thought, "You have to do a LETTER??" Too stoopid a notion to comprehend, not everyone is addressing LETTERS!! to even call it "Mail" merge is missing my point of merging any-old-thing, like letters of recommendation for students, for bursaries, employment, OR university application, these aren't letters, per se, none have an Inside Address, nor a Salutation--and certainly not a Salutation followed by a COMMA, that's "Closed Punctuation style," which went out-of-fashion same time IBM Selectrics left the scene. NB With handwriting you use a comma--but with typing, a Salutation is followed by nothing (modern); or a COLON--and then only if you use a Complimentary Closing AND follow THAT with a comma Yours truly, comma, see? ) Getting rid of that comma as a default in Salutation, gad, a task of it's own. If any of that was set-up to make things easier, undo it because it screws up the idea that people set it up the way they want it.

However, all merge documents have fields, e.g. fname, lname, p_subject, p_object, p_possessive, comments, are the fields for my form concerning each of all of my students for ANY addressee they happen to hand it to. NB Field names are the top Row in your Calc document. If first word in a sentence is a field, then obviously I need another version of THAT pronoun field, for example another field, cap_pron_possessive (etc.) too, but when you only have 120 students to do, that's no hardship to have that one-more-field, with "His" as well as "his," you see.

SO now that I've saved my Calc file with no spaces in the filename, in the default folder, meaning where Mail Merge Wizard puts it when it offers to save your database for you [i.e. in c: > Program Files > OpenOffice > Basis > presets > database], it worked like a charm! Monday I shall try to get twenty 15-year olds to do a nursery school report card to parents (a sort of a letter, though no Inside Address, no Salutation, no Complimentary Close, just "To parent or guardian of ..." and then a signature-space, see?). I am so sure it's entirely fine now (god help me, I've been wrong before). It works! Just a small database, i.e. just a Calc file, just a Writer file. Not only to teach OpenOffice for the first time to this class, but to use it for letters of recommendation for-every-one of my students. I've done it for years in Word, now I'm happy with it in Writer. Ah-hhh. IT WORKS. I'm in heaven!

I have Calc files with spaces in the names that work fine. Try this excellent article on mail merge http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/art ... office_org. I also recommend just trying File--->Print and say yes to the form letter prompt. The wizard is a total waste of time.