Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 104993
Mail merge feature is appaling and does not work properly.
Last modified: 2017-05-20 11:18:09 UTC
First of all I want to state how frustrating it is to even get to this point of reporting a bug. No wonder MS Office is on most desktops. And I have reported this bug before and no one gave a coherent answer. Again, KUDOS to MS. Their software at least works when you NEED it to work. Now, I am reporting a really bad bug that has NEVER been sorted out and it such a stupid bug that it really is annoying. When doling mail merges, I want to have the salutation as follows: Dear William, Now, the mail merge wizard does NOT ALLOW ONE TO DO THIS. It supposedly has the ability when you look at the options but IT DOES NOT WORK. It has the options of Dear 1, (whatever that is), Dear Mrs. <LastName>, <FirstName>, [ Dear 1, <FirstName>, ], Dear , Dear 1, . When trying to customize the salutiation all the options one gets is this: Dear Mrs. <2>, Ms. <2>, Dear <1>, Hello <1>, What do the numbers relate to? Nothing. One cannot actually make a NEW salutation from scratch. I HAVE TRIED IT. It works in its own way, but garbage comes out. Really stupid. Whoever created this got too involved in the details and came up with something so assinine that the bloody thing does not work the way it should. The options that should be available should be based on whether one checked the gender box. If one is not checked ALL cannot be checked. If gender box is used: Dear Sir, Dear Madam, Dear Mr. <LastName>, Dear Ms. <LastName>, Dear Mrs. <LastName>, <FirstName>, <FirstName> <LastName>, Hello <FirstName>, Hello <FirstName> <LastName>, Customized to WHATEVER THE USER WANTS. If gender is not used: Dear <FirstName>, Dear <FirstName> <LastName>, Hello <FirstName>, Hello <FirstName> <LastName>, Customized to WHATEVER THE USER WANTS. Really bloody simple. Stop making it so user unfriendly.
Created attachment 64702 [details] Screen shot of customization screen for salutation
Should be the same problem as issue 41413. Please try out with OOo 3.2 dev build 300m58. *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 41413 ***
Closing duplicate.
This issue is NOT THE SAME. The file given in the previous bug report 41413: /sw/source/ui/dbui/mmgreetingspage.cxx is not on my system. Neither are the other files it seems (I am searching for one of the other files and it is not being found, and I do not have the time to search for all these files). The file given in issue 41413: mmlayoutpage.cxx has, not been found (just finished scanning for it). What is the point of saying that an issue has been resolved in a certain file but not saying how to find that file, go into that file, and fix it? Or even providing a file that one can download? Or saying that a file has been fixed and then forgetting that the file may be non-existant in the current version? This is A WASTE OF MY TIME.
ROTFL! :) "/sw/source/ui/dbui/mmgreetingspage.cxx" is the file containing the code source which has been fixed. I won't explain you - and I can't - the whole development process but, no, you cannot find this file on your system. It seems you have not a lot to learn about what Open Source is... Apart of that, I'd like to ask you to cool down! Avoid shouting (using capitals) and flaming out loud ("the bloody thing" and so on) Avoid expressing general things which have nothing to do with the current and concrete issue (what MS does or not is fully irrelevant for the case) Else if you have reported this issue already - as you say - the current issue is then duplicate of the other you used to report, isn't it? However it appears that this issue is not duplicate of issue 41413 but of course for other reasons than what you explained. @HI: please take over
Ok, in fact issue 41413 does not solve this one because it is as user friendly as before ;) Currently we are thinking about to renew the MailMerge wizard. So your suggestions are welcome! For now I reassign this issue to fix the useless numbers at the Custom Salutation. And, the Gender box should be better placed above Firstname.
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".