How do I return to edit mode in form letters

[wgt]

Hi,
this is probably so stupid that there is nothing about it in any documentation.

I’m in a form letter in version 7.3.7.2. Now I did something (don’t know what!) with the effect that I am shown the individual resulting letters. But I don’t find a way to return to editing the form letter as such, notably adding data fields. I know I can press Ctrl+F9 but that only shows me the names of the data fields, still in each individual letter. I want to go back to the mode/view that you start out from.

(It’s embarrassing I know, but it’s a long time since I used form letter last…)

(screenshot: This toolbar is now above my document, and I can go through the individual letters using the arrows. But I don’t want to edit any of the individual letters!)

[Villeroy]

If you can’t edit the form letter itself, the document is loaded read-only for some reason we can’t know.
menu:Edit>Edit mode [Ctrl+Shift+M]
Now you can edit the loaded document. When you save your changes and you are prompted to specify a new location/name for the document, then the document is not writable on file system level and you should store the modified version to your local home directory (Windows “My Files”).

[wgt]

Thanks a lot, but that isn’t it. I am in edit mode, and I can edit the individual resulting letters. I.e., I get shown not one page containing the data fields/reference cells in the spreadsheet (as usual), but I get shown 24 pages, each containing the contents of one line of cells. So I could edit those individually, but that’s not what I want to do. I want to continue editing the form letter as such, adding new reference cells etc.

[Wanderer]

I guess you can’t go “back” from here, as you seem to be in the newly created merged document. The original source should be in another window, but may be closed by the wizard (wich I never use).
.
The toolbar you see is shown in this guide (not a video, but doc to the video) as “mail merge toolbar”.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Videos/Mail_Merge_in_Writer
.
You may try, if the button to the left is opening the full wizard again.

[wgt]

Thanks! That was a good hint. I had indeed come to have two documents, one of them empty. Maybe I somehow produced the mailmerge, but didn’t save the original file after inserting the fields.

But: Now the strange thing: After editing the original file as desired (pulling the columns from the data source into the document), and saving it (using the Save button from the standard toolbar, NOT the Save Merged Documents, which was not there yet), the mail merge toolbar appears, the page number becomes “-1”. On clicking the right arrow I go to “1” (which is the first individual letter) but can no longer go back to “-1” (arrow is greyed out) and I am in the same situation as before. I come to believe in a bug here…

[fpy]

@wgt

return

Mail Merge Wizard ?

[wgt]

Thanks a lot, but I think that does not help me either, because I had already set up the document (using not the mail merge wizard but the address data source wizard from the file menu for certain reasons).

I am afraid I might be more stupid than you all think. So it’s really only… you know, this toolbar that I appended as a screenshot up in my original question: how can I make it disappear again? Before it was there, I was able to work with the document the way I wanted to.

[bantoniof]

@wgt

this toolbar that I appended as a screenshot up in my original question: how can I make it disappear again?

Have you tried using the menu View > Toolbars > Mail Merge ?

[wgt]

Well, yes, thanks, that does make the toolbar disappear from view (and I know that was what I wrote I wanted to happen) but I still don’t get to see the “master” view with the names of the columns, only the individual resulting letters, although view-> data sources still shows the connected spreadsheet.

Anyway, I was able to finish the project by setting up the file from scratch, dragging all the data fields into their places BEFORE saving, so now the “editing mode” is gone again, but from a practical point of view I have what I wanted. Maybe I’ll find out the next time.

[Grantler]

@wgt

I still don’t get to see the “master” view with the names of the columns, only the individual resulting letters, although view-> data sources still shows the connected spreadsheet.

View Image in a separate window, please.


Image 1: Mail Merge toolbar displays -1 - you could show individual names (green arrows)
Image 2: You can display individual names (here: no. 1)
Image 3: Way back (to execute for each field): Select field (double click) - choose User-defined.


EDIT
Warning! While you are “renaming” the fields the file itself becomes instable. Don’t “count” up/down with the green arrows of Mail Merge toolbar. After having “renamed” the fields into column headers’ names save and close the file (and LO as well). Then open the file from anew.


Tip/Workaround: To avoid the instable state of the file erase the “individually named fields” one by one and insert the original fields (column headers’s names in arrow brackets) again (drag and drop).


This problem is derived from OpenOffice. There you also could transform “fields into text” (or similar). There was no easy way back despite using a macro or the above mentioned workaround.