[SLUG] Mailmerge, debate

[john at johnallsopp.co.uk]

> john at johnallsopp.co.uk wrote:
>> I'm trying to do a mailmerge of a letter with data in a spreadsheet.
>> Open Office 2.0 Writer is so difficult to use I haven't managed it.
>> Well, I kinda have but not in the format I want, and now it just
>> crashes.
>
> Any chance of giving a rough outline of what you were trying to do.
> I've got some time this week and would welcome the opportunity to do
> some experimenting.
>
> Martin

Hi Martin

Just what I said really. I've a two-page letter and a spreadsheet of
maybe thirty names. Open Office wants you to put in an 'address block'
which then doesn't seem to ever want to leave (whereas AbiWord does it
nicely, allowing you to just put mailmerge fields where you want).
That address block follows a predetermined format, so obviously with
America being the centre of the universe you have to create your own,
so you do that, and then it wants you to create a salutation (eg. Dear
Mr Allsopp). My database contains the Mr Allsopp bit, but I couldn't
seem to make that work, so I wanted to include it in the address
block:

Mr J Allsopp
John Allsopp Internet Magic Puffhouse Ltd
1 St. Mary's Walk
Scarborough
North Yorkshire
YO11 1RN

Dear Mr Allsopp

It seemed to work first of all, but some addresses had blank address
lines so I'd end up with blank lines which look bad.

When I tried to correct all that, it just fell over somewhere shortly
after designing my address block and continued to do that every time.

The problem isn't not knowing how to do it, it's that it's incredibly
difficult to do, so in the true Linux way I looked for other software
that worked.

AbiWord seems fine, but the actual merge itself is done at the command
line. Anyway, I (forget now where, but I) got really great crashes
from AbiWord.

Umm, is there anything else you'd like to know? I'm using Gnome atm,
but I may change my mind if I have to install FC5.

Cheers
J