Quickbooks has some way that it can connect to Microsoft Word in a mail merge type of fashion to print out letters. Is there a plugin or way that we can make LibreOffice appear to Quickbooks as a connection?
I have asked Intuit back in 2010 if they could build in compatibility to OpenOffice, but since Quickbooks 2013 still doesn’t recognize it I assume they don’t care.
Hi @pixelstuff,
Couple of interesting links:
Looks like you can export from QB to CSV format, which LibreOffice can then import using Calc.
You specifically mentioned MS-Word and mail merge – what’s your use case here? What kind of data do you need to export out of QB, and once it’s out of there and imported to LibreOffice, what do you need to do with it next?
It’s not really an issue of having a work around for LibreOffice, it’s more an issue of saving 10 minutes every time I want to do a mail merge from Quickbooks.
In Quickbooks there is a button at the top of an invoice, and in various other places throughout the software, where you can click a button which will launch MS Word pull up a Word Template and fill in the customer data for you. It can be used to generate things such as a collections letter just for that one customer or a variety of customers.
I don’t know how they are interfacing with Word to create the mail merge, but I know that Quickbooks doesn’t recognize LibreOffice even though LibreOffice is the default application for Word documents.
I’m just wondering, A: IF Intuit even wanted to create integration with LibreOffice does LibreOffice have the necessary hooks. And B: is there anything that LibreOffice could do to help out Intuit or eliminate any work on their part. Maybe trick Quickbooks into thinking that Writer is MS Word.
A plugin to “trick” the system (if possible) might have further reaching benefits with other applications that make use of Excel to run calculations or show import error messages. For example, Honeywell’s WinPak Access Control software tries to launch Excel with a list of error messages if an import fails. FireLite has a system configuration utility which tries to launch Excel to run a macro which creates a bill of materials.
I’d ask Intuit for more info on Word integration. It might be possible for LO to act like Word, but cooperation from Intuit could drastically simplify the process.
If you file an enhancement bug for LO, other interested parties may help out.
Good luck!