image fields and conditional images

I have certificates that I have created in Writer to which I add the recipient’s name and other information. As long as it’s just text, things work.

Unfortunately LibreOffice Writer doesn’t seem to regard all objects as equal. An image field in Base doesn’t seem to merge into the Writer document. I can’t use a field in an image box and images fields entered inline with text don’t show up.

While an image box could just be link, there seems to be no way to set that link based on the value in a field.

I realize that the current mail merge code just dumps the value of a field into the document. However I don’t see images as being any different. It’s just that the image data needs to be wrapped.

The alternative, at least in my use case, would be to use conditional images. Unfortunately image boxes are again second class citizens within Writer documents. While paragraphs and bits of text can be conditional inserted or hidden, images can’t be.

I’d like to see both features implemented but would settle for either one. Images have been part of documents since before writing was invented. They shouldn’t be second class citizens in Writer documents.

Have you already tried to use a report instead of mail merge?

Reports don’t allow enough formatting - its a report after all.