Anybody in know able to give a blow by blow account of how to create a mail merge document based on a a database and database query. I need to be able to select parameters and not necessarily create a letter or email. I have gone through the steps to create a query and link the database but from there on it goes belly up. The help pages relating to this aren’t really much help.
- Open the Writer document with the serial letter or label sheet.
- Get the data source window (Ctrl+Shift+F4).
- In the left pane choose the database query. If your database does not occur in the data source window, right-click>Registered databases (or Tools>Options>Base>Databases) and add your Base document to the list of registered databases.
- Drag grey column headers from the right pane into your document.
- When printing, you get a prompt like “This document contains mail merge fields. Do you want to print a serial letter?” which needs to be confirmed.
A special print dialog allows you to choose between printer or files as output medium.
Thanks Andreas, I have had a go at that. Maybe I am thick but the method of inserting fields is rather neat but nowhere could I find the information that would lead me to discovering that for myself. I will play around and see how I get on but your information has been really useful.
I should have mentioned that I am using a Mac but the Ctrl+Shift+F4 routine still works.
Best wishes
The “normal” routine via menu:File>Wizards>Letter… is way more difficult.
menu:Insert>Fields>Database is another documented method doing the same as the drag&drop.
menu:View>Data Sources shows all registered data sources with their tables and queries.
Each data source is a name for a database document (*.odb).
A database document may have a database embedded or may be connected to something database-like, even a spreadsheet. This is indicated in the status bar of a loaded database document. From the data source window, right-click>Edit Database… loads the underlying database document.
The Writer Guide has a chapter on mail merge, download from English documentation | LibreOffice Documentation - LibreOffice User Guides
Great thanks, downloaded.