Creating mailing labels using a Calc file as data base

[Susan1948]

To start I want to introduce myself, I am Susan. I have been retired from our local school district where we used WordPerfect. That was 5 years ago. I had subscribed to a WP magazine, then a WP newsletter that made me pretty efficient in WordPerfect, but I can't seem to transfer that knowledge to be able to use MS Word or Open Office type applications.
What I have is a data document from a volunteer group my husband belongs to. They need a set of labels to mail a form requesting donations for this years Air show.
I believe I have correctly created the label "document" with all of the fields from the calc/data base file but I can't seem to figure out how to merge the data to the labels. When I tried to merge them I only saw the options to create letters or email, which I don't want to do at all. I did just go ahead and try to do the letters but am given 150 seperate letters AND all of the data does not show up even though it is in the Data/Calc document I have. And yes, I do have 150 data lines. I'm use to getting one document with a new letter on each page, not that that is really important, I guess.
Can anyone explain to me or guide me to the information on how to get my labels?
I have gone to help and printed out what I found there, "Creating and Pringing Labels and Business Cards" and also "Printing Address Labels" but I guess my blonde roots are showing because I still am not having any luck. I think some part of this may be because I'm not familar with all of the terms since they are not the same as WordPerfect, understandably
Thanks,
Susan

[JohnSUN-Pensioner]

Welcome to forum, Susan!
Perhaps this topic will help you

[MrProgrammer]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

I've created labels from data in a spreadsheet many times. First create a database which uses the spreadsheet as its source with File > New > Database > Connect to existing database > Spreadsheet > Next > {specify name} > Next > Register. You want to register the database so OOo can find it when creating labels. Then use File > New > Labels > Labels and select the database, table (sheet), fields, and formatting that you want on the labels. Use the default options of Entire Page and Synchronize. The New Document button will create a label (Writer) document. Use View > Data Sources and highlight the rows that you want labels for by clicking the first row and shift-clicking the last row. Then use the Data to Fields button on the toolbar to copy the data from the database to the label document. My printer does not feed labels reliably so I always highlight the first 30 rows — I get 30 labels per page — Data to Fields and print. Then I insert a new label sheet in the printer, highlight the next 30 rows, Data to Fields, print, etc. When you print, you'll be asked if you want to print a form letter. Say "No" to print your labels.

Synchronize Labels means that only the first (upper left) label is editable and all the rest are linked to it. You'll find that labels 2 through N are read only. If you need to edit the labels later, make changes to the first one and use the Synchronize labels button to copy the changes to the rest of them. If you use View > Field Names on the labels, you should see that each label ends with a "Next Record" field so that the following label gets its data from the next row of the database. If "Next Record" is missing, each label will just be a copy of the previous one because it will extract the same fields from the database again.

If this answered your question please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[Susan1948]

I think I finally got it, but if not, I'll be back! LOL
From the data base I clicked on File, New & Labels then New Document I saved the result of that then from within that document clicked on Tools and Mail Merge Wizard. I just ignored the fact that it said it would create a letter or an email (I think I left it at letter) then kept clicking next until I saw "Save starting document" then I changed that to "Save Merged document" then Save as aSsingle Document then named that and clicked finish.
After that at first I only saw a document with one label and lots of grey lines on the rest of the labels. I deleted that, excuse me "Discarded" that and was left with my page of labels. Maybe I didn't discard the first document, I can't remember now because I went through this so many times until I finally found/got my pages of labels. I might have saved it once so I could reuse it??? I just can't remember. Now I am cleaning up the data since it turns out some entries didn't have any addresses and we didn't want labels for all of them after all. I added a field with a yes or no so the ones I wanted to print could be sorted to be together. I will use the hint of highlighting the ones I want to actually print.
Thanks,
Susan

[Susan1948]

Well...... Now I can't do what ever I was doing before, I'm guessing I left out a step but I don't know what it is. So I went back and followed your directions but I can only get the first page even though I selected 54 records. I suppose I could just select what ever fits on one page , in my case I have 20 per page but it doesn't seem that I should have to do that since my printer picks up the pages easily.

I also don't know what you mean by: "Synchronize Labels means that only the first (upper left) label is editable and all the rest are linked to it. You'll find that labels 2 through N are read only." What is "N"? Just want to try to get the lingo, or was that a type-O?

I was wondering wy I can't seem to save the "Document" that has all of the labels in it so I don't have to go through all of this every time I want to print out the same labels, can't that be done?
TIA,
Susan

[MrProgrammer]

I can't seem to save the "Document" that has all of the labels in it

Try File > Save As > File type > ODF Text Document Template. When you later open the template, you'll be asked if you want to update links. Say "No" because you'll be filling these links from your database when you use Text to Fields.

I can only get the first page even though I selected 54 records.

The File > New > Labels dialog builds a 1-page label document. If you have 20 labels per page, you have 20 sets of database fields on that page. Each set accepts one row from the database (spreadsheet) when you use Data to Fields. Since you only have 20 sets of database fields in your 1-page document, you can only retrieve 20 records from the database. But you can create more fields by just copying that page. Use Edit > Select All then Edit > Copy. You now have a copy of the page on the clipboard. Scroll to the end of your document and click in the area to the right of your last label. Calculate how many pages you need by dividing the number of records in the database by 20 and rounding up. So if you have 54 records, 54÷20 = 2.7 so you'll need a total of three pages. You already have the first page, so paste it two times. Now you have a three page document with 60 fields, which is enough to accept all the records from your database. If the number of records in your database doesn't change much you can save the multi-page document as your template. If the number of records varies quite a bit it's probably easiest to save the 1-page document as your template and copy the page as needed each time you use it. Or you could just create a document with more pages than you think you'll ever use and save that. After using Text to Fields, use your printer dialog to avoid printing the unused pages at the end of the document. It's possible that there's an easier way to create labels so OOo creates enough pages automatically, but I haven't discovered it. That might be part of the Mail Merge dialog, which I haven't explored.

What is "N"?

The number of labels per page; 20 in your case. I used "N" because I didn't know how many labels you had per page.

I also don't know what you mean by: "Synchronize Labels means that only the first (upper left) label is editable and all the rest are linked to it.

Go to any label on the page except the one in the upper left and try to edit it. You can't. Writer will say "Read only content cannot be changed". But this is good. Say you want to modify the labels. You certainly don't want to have to do that 20 times, once per label. Instead, you edit the upper left one and use the Synchronize Labels button to copy the modification to the other 19 labels on the page.

I added a field with a yes or no so the ones I wanted to print could be sorted to be together.

Another approach is to open the database and build a Query which will select only records with "Yes" in that field. Then, when you use View > Data Sources, you will be able to select that query as your data source and the only records you will get labels for are the ones matching the query. You can build and store multiple queries in your database and then select the one you want when it's time to make some labels. Depending on what you're doing, you may not even need that yes/no field because the query might be able to find the correct records from the values of existing fields in your database.

For people used to other product's "mail merge" procedures, OOo's method can seem strange and difficult. I thought so too, at first. But OOo's method of using Writer, Base, and Calc to generate labels from database queries of a spreadsheet is really useful and clever once you understand how it works.

[Susan1948]

Thanks for all the helpful posts. I've been sandwiching this job between several others so have not read them all until today. It's that time of year, you know.
Thanks again,
Susan

[acknak]

Another good resource for labels: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/art ... office_org

Edit: 2024-12-11: Broken link -- MrProgrammer, forum moderator

[barbolink2]

I want to thank you for the clear directions. They worked great