Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 48476
Label-making and mail merge are bloated and overcomplicated.
Last modified: 2017-05-20 10:11:48 UTC
And not to mention that the whole process is assinine. I've submitted bugs for various parts of my experience that added up to about 7 hours of aggravation in trying to print some 400 labels. You need to address the whole process. A) Calc does not have a Zip Code defined number. When an excel file was opened, the zip codes appeared to be fine. When I entered changes, the numbers were somehow different and aligned differently in the box. But they did not LOOK different. When I got to the label stage, I discovered that any of the entries that I didn't make were not being counted as numbers. ADDITIONALLY, once I deleted all the ' from those imported numbers, any zip code starting with a 0 was only 4 digits long. Had to define my own five 0 leading number. B) The "Make Labels" option does not let me choose where I want the data to come from unless that data source has already been defined. I'm making labels. I want to make labels, I see a convenient menu option for it, only to find that I can't tell it to use the nice Calc file that I just set up for this purpose. I should be able to add whatever file I want FROM THIS MENU because it's part of the label making process AND making labels is what I've obviously chosen to do. C) Adding Calc files as a data source seems like an afterthought. It converts them to some kind of database which I cannot edit should I see a problem in the data. You MAKE Calc files. The components should be able to read one another's data without a problem. D) Because adding Calc files was an afterthought, the only ways to do it are through a dialog in the Mail Merge window or through Exchange Database. You have a Data Sources window. Adding a data source is something that I should be able to do FROM THE DATA SOURCES WINDOW. E) Your alignment for Avery 5160 labels is off. The labels will print off the stickers. F) Why am I using Mail Merge to make labels? I'm not making letters. I'm not doing a form letter. I'm making labels. You have a Make Labels menu option. This should take me through the ENTIRE process instead of leaving me with Fields that are not filled in with the data that I specified when I made them in the first place. G) It should not print more labels than it has data for. In order to format the labels for mailing addresses, I have to add a comma. This means that if the last sheet is not full, I get half a sheet full of commas. H) I can only run one mail merge function every time I load OO. Why? Because this machine does not have enough memory for 2 runs. It will run out of RAM and start using Virtual Memory, which means it will never complete and I have to turn the program off. THIS IS HIGHLY AGGRAVATING. If Word can make labels without using up all my available memory, so can you. I) When the mail merge occurs, it tells me that it's making x/total documents. The x number is a lie. Or rather, it's only partly true. When the counter go to 14/408 it was done! And then made a 27 page file. The 27 page file was half blank pages that came out of nowhere and do not appear on the screen in the Writer view. I cannot delete them. Why are there blank pages? So far everything was automated. If Mail Merge prints the labels, only 14 pages (all the labels) come out, not 27. If I print the file that was generated by mail merge, 27 come out. Remove the blank pages. And change the Mail Merge dialog to accurately reflect what's going on. Better yet, don't have labels and mail merge associated with one another. J) Mail Merge and Label Making are different things. If you're going to have a wizard that makes labels, have it take me from start to finish. It should measure out the label sizes, ask me what file I want to use for data, ask me what fields I want, allow me to arrange them accordingly, allow me to change the font size and type, and then finally populate the labels with the data that I told it I wanted to use. If I want to make merged form letters, I'll make merged form letters-entirely different goal. K) Make a OOBeta forum on the forum site so I can have someone to ask who isn't using version 1.1 and wondering what my problem is.
defect -> enhancement
OpenOffice.org Issue Tracker - Feedback Request. The Issue you raised is currently assigned to 'Requirements' pending review, but has not been updated within the last 3 years. Please consider re-testing with one of the latest versions of OOo, as the problem(s) may have already been addressed. Either use the recent stable version: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html or consider trying the new OOo 3 BETA (still in testing): http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/ Please report back the outcome so this Issue may be Closed or Progressed as necessary - otherwise it may be Resolved as Invalid in the future. You may also wish to search for (and note) any duplicates of this Issue that may have advanced further by checking the Issue Tracker: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/query.cgi Many thanks, Andrew Cleaning-up and Closing old Issues as part of: ~ The Grand Bug Squash, pre v3 ~ http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/announcementbeta.html
Please consider re-testing with one of the latest versions of OOo and providing an update / further information. Cheers. Lowering Issue priority... From: http://qa.openoffice.org/scdocs/ddIssues_EnterModify.html#priority P2 - Marks severe problems which affect a significant number of customers. Issues with this priority must be fixed before the target release ... and should be dealt with as soon as possible. Not fixing them for the target release is not acceptable.
Please attach example. Only one bug per report: https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/QA/HowToFileIssue
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