I would like to create an address book from a database (using Calc as data
source). This can be done in Microsoft word using the mail merge feature and
selecting "Catalog" as the type of document (versus letters, labels, etc.).

Going through the mailing lists, I found the following instructions to do this.
They are very difficult and simply a work around.

I could not find an issue on this anywhere.

Below are the instructions from the mailing list:

> I'm trying to make an address book for our club using mail merge. I've
> got a workable one, but have a question.
>
> Since I'm trying to create a document, instead of a printout, it would
> be nice to have it in one document. But the merge function, "Form
> Letter" creates a document for each page. I'd also like to put in page
> numbers, but that can't happen with separate documents. I can always
> manually concatenate all the pages, but does anyone know of a more
> straightforward way?
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> Marc <takeahike@ironroots.com>

Hi Marc,

As most busuinesses I know need to produce such a list from Customers,
Suppliers or whatever, I thought your requirement was important to check
out.

I always thought when I first tried this it was just me.

>From my testing (and I can be wrong) the Form Letter facility does exactly
what you say.  It creates for each page of addresses a single file which
starts again at page one.  I hope I'm wrong but if it isn't this is a very
severe limitation.

What I have learned from your question is that Form Letter does not work as
I expected and it probably really should not be used in conjunction with the
Next Record facility.  That is it is only good for merge a letter to a a
record, not to create continuous list.

The approach that does work in Writer is to use the Data to Form feature.

If you think this is a shortcoming of the product (and I think it is) then
you may wish to request an enhancement.

I should also be fair here.  I don't like the way word processors generally
handle mail merge and I think you should be able to simply put in the first
layout for the first record and then put in a repeat for all select records.
That's just me.

First create your document and insert your header and footer.

Put in the first entry of your merge fields in the layout you want including
the Next record field plus any required blank lines.  (You may also want to
use the hidden paragraphs and hidden text features.)

Now copy the layout enough times to cater for the number of members you
have.  Control-V is much faster to paste.

I would suggest at this stage saving the document as a template and then
opening it using File -> New -> Templates.

Now select your records in the data source view and click on Data To Fields
and you will see your records in the current document.

The document should have pages where they are supposed to be and page
numbers as desired.

The final step will probably be to insert manual page breaks to get the page
breaks in sensible locations.

Don't forget also that OpenOffice.org has excellent facilities to produce
your address book as a booklet that can be easily folded and used as a
reference.  I make this available on my website for others if you need to
know  about it.
(see http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=users&msgId=581252 for rest
of message and other responses to the thread)