[Klug-general] mysql with OpenOffice

[Michael E. Rentell]

Good day again,

I wonder if someone can help. I am trying very hard to break the 
connection with MS. One big tie is a database I have in MSAccess. It is 
the members' mailing list of a club I am the secretary of (800 members 
worldwide) so it is important.

I would like to handle the data in Linux so I have installed mysql and 
created an empty database which is exactly the same as the Access table. 
I have then exported from Access and inserted it into mysql.

Success. In a terminal, either as mick at localhost or root at localhost I can 
invoke mysql and see the data and do all the sql-ly things and it is 
correct.

But that's dead hard. Being a mug for GUIs I then found and set up both 
knoda and mysqlCC under KDE. Both work. When I invoke knoda a message 
box entitled 'Driver select dialog' asks me to select a driver. I don't 
know what this means but it helpfully has only one preselected entry in 
that window which is 'odbc' so I click the 'connect' box and then up 
comes the odbc password dialog. Again that is filled in with database 
name 'Default' and user 'mick', the password box is blank. If I click OK 
to that (not putting in a password) then my tables and some queries and 
reports I have created with it all become available OK.

In mysqlCC it seems even easier. Up pops the startup window with a list 
of Mysql servers. One of the list is 'Members' which I created in 
terminal mysql. That drops out to 'Tables' and then 'allmembers'. It 
works fine.

However, both these gui front-ends to mysql are work-in-progress and I 
want to generate quite flashy looking reports etc so I thought 
OpenOffice would do it better.

This is the problem. I have spent days and days trying to make 
OpenOffice see the mysql Members database. With whatever I put into the 
mysql connect box in the OOo Address Data Source wizard (sorry - 
autopilot!) it won't connect. There are several options given under 
'Other external data source' and I have of course clicked the offered 
'mySql'. There are two routes for connection available. One is via 
MyODBC (dunno what that is) and the other is called Connector/J3. I have 
tried both to no avail. The Connector/J3 seems more obvious and I have 
put in the connection details 'localhost:3306/Members but it won't 
connect. I have tried most variations of that in odbc as well but as I 
am unsure what odbc is I am groping in the dark. It just seems to work 
in knoda using odbc - whatever that is.

Anyone any idea how I can make a valid mysql table appear as a 
registered data source in OOo?  I am using version 1.1.3 of OOo although 
I have also downloaded the 1.9.9.7-nnn (beta ver 2) but it displays the 
same problem although the connection tables are a bit different.

Sorry to go on so but I thought the detail might help.

Any thoughts would be most welcome.

Mike Rentell in Folkestone