Any ideas how to create a Members Directory / Yellow Pages-style directory with Base & Writer?

[digirhap]

Hi there,
I’ve been tasked by my local Scout group to create a Leaders/Adult Members directory and a completely separate Campsites directory. Straight away this would be a huge task with the members directory ranging in the the hundreds of people, affiliated to different groups (etc) but am thinking the output like a white pages booklet. The Campsites directory would need to be more in the style of a Yellow Pages - with the listings

1. Am I thinking correctly that Base / Writer would be the right programs for this task? I was wondering if there is a way to create a Base database for the memberships and then export the data in to writer to add the covers, format the output to 3 columns (etc).

2. For the Campsite directory / Yellow Pages-style data, is there a way to manage the data to either be a “listing”, “bold” or “Featured / picture ad” style and the database knowing what information needs to be output from the database when exportinh, or am I mixing the concepts together too much? Anyone know if I’m even in the right ball-park knowing if this is even possible?

3. From my research, before posting this question, I came across catbase.com - which seems to be able to achieve the same kind of things - but is outputing to Adobe Indesign and many £££ / $$$ which is just out of my completely non-existent budget.

Any help, advice and input would be truly greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Leigh

[AlexKemp]

Hi digirhap

If you are talking many thousands of people then most certainly Base is the application. If hundreds, then possibly you can get away with using Calc. The computer memory is likely to be one restriction (with Calc, all info is loaded into memory at once), but the expertise of the users may well be another…

You will need to have some expertise in SQL to use Base.

I do not know of any in-built connection between Base & Writer (or, indeed, between Calc & Writer) (I’m well experienced with databases, but not Base). You will, then, most likely have to write export routines.

It is possibly worth pointing out that a website containing a (often MySQL) DB-backend and using (often PHP) scripted database-access to produce webpages is perfectly typical.

[LibreTraining]

You do not need anything like Catbase/InDesign - very high-end for print.

Yes, LO Base can do what you need, but you will have a learning curve.
Integration with LO Writer is not needed.
The Base Report Builder or Report Wizard can create your directory and catalog pages.

The latest Base 5 docs (and sample database) are here:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications#LibreOffice_Base_Handbook

Lynda has a Base course - 2.5 hours - the 10 days free trial should be plenty of time
http://www.lynda.com/Base-2-tutorials/openoffice-org-2-base-getting-started/712-2.html
A bit older so I assume the screens have changed in LO. Approx. 200 MB total.

Udemy had a 15 hour LO Base course - Learn how to use LibreOffice Base
but I just checked the link and it has been deleted for some reason.
I have it (2.5 GB, big!). Have not watched it yet, but it looks very good. Very complete.

Base is exactly the right tool for your application.