Update field based on form input with data in a database

[just_me]

Hello,

I have a database table created in Base, which is registered. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say that this table contains three fields: a Person’s Name (“Name”), and their associated Address (“Address”) and Age (“Age”). The Name field is unique, though the Address and Age fields aren’t.

I am attempting to create a Writer document which contains a list box, whose elements are the names in the Name field of the database. Upon selecting a name from this list box, other locations within the Writer document are updated with the corresponding address and age. This cannot be done as a mail-merge as one document will have multiple such list boxes and any given list box may or may not be unique with respect to the other list boxes.

Using the Control Toolbar with the Wizard on, I can create the list box, which is linked to the database’s fields. Upon toggling Design Mode to off, the names appear as expected in the list box of the Writer document and I can select one of my choosing. What I cannot seem to figure out is how to update other locations within the document to include the address and age (i.e. the other 2 fields) of the same record from which the name was obtained.

I have looked at inserting fields into my document as well as playing around with the Properties (accessed by right-click->Control…) of the listbox but there is so much there that I don’t know where to start. I’ve searched online but can’t seem to find a solution to this seemingly simple exercise. I have a fair amount of experience using Writer (but limited with fields, database interaction and macros) but am a newbie to Base.

I hope that my subject line and subsequent text uses terminology correctly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

TIA.
J

EDIT 2014-09-30

Greatly simplified explanation:

I have the following table in a database, with ‘ID’ being the primary key:

ID | Name | Age

0 | Joe | 10

1 | Adam | 12 ....

In Writer, how can I create 2 or more list boxes whose entries are the ‘Name’ cells/record and then print the corresponding ‘Age’ cell/record somewhere else? I don’t think I can use mail-merge as I need to access more than one field per document.

In the above example, 2 list boxes would have the names “Joe”, “Adam”, … as their input choices, and text somewhere else would update with the ‘Age’ as “10”, “12”, …

I am using LibreOffice 4.2.6 on a debian stable machine.

[iplaw67]

What I don’t understand is why you state that mailmerge wouldn’t work - surely you only want one record in any given document ? So why the need for several list boxes ? Just trying to understand…

[iplaw67]

So my way of attempting to solve this would be to separate out the name and age into two different tables with Age having a key that corresponds to a foreign key set up in your Names table, then use your Writer document as a main form which binds to say, “Name”, and a subform for the Age bound to a listbox control based on a SQL statement (JOIN) using the foreign key from Name and the corresponding key from Age