Need Help Setting Up Mail Merge

I've spent several hours going around in circles trying to get mail merge setup and running in LibreOffice. It was working fine in OpenOffice, but OO starting crashing and is currently unusable on my Mac.

Using the "Address Data Source" wizard, I can not get everything in place. I have a data document that is exported from Filemaker Pro, I tried "tab" and "csv" both. Is there a correct file type that I should use? Here are the steps that I am taking,

Address book type - "other external data source"

Connection Settings - I click on "Settings"

Database type - I select "Text" from the drop down menu

Path to the text files - I browse to the file that Filemaker exported, but it is greyed out. I can only select the folder that contains the exported csv or tab file.

I can then specify the type of file, and the field separator, etc., but the actual file never gets selected.


I would appreciate any help with this, after several hours trying every combination I could come up with, I'm at a lost.

Thanks!
Charles

Hi :)
Documentation?  Writer Guide, Chapter 11
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications
Errr, i take it the guide for 3.4.x is not working on your system?  The docs team are working on the 3.5.x guides now so it would be good to know if there is a problem or a change so that they can make a note of it for when they get that far. 

Could you let us know which version of LO are you using and which OS? 

Regards from
Tom :) 

--- On Sun, 24/6/12, Charles218 <[hidden email]> wrote:

From: Charles218 <[hidden email]>
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Need Help Setting Up Mail Merge
To: [hidden email]
Date: Sunday, 24 June, 2012, 6:03

I've spent several hours going around in circles trying to get mail merge
setup and running in LibreOffice. It was working fine in OpenOffice, but OO
starting crashing and is currently unusable on my Mac.

Using the "Address Data Source" wizard, I can not get everything in place. I
have a data document that is exported from Filemaker Pro, I tried "tab" and
"csv" both. Is there a correct file type that I should use? Here are the
steps that I am taking,

Address book type - "other external data source"

Connection Settings - I click on "Settings"

Database type - I select "Text" from the drop down menu

Path to the text files - I browse to the file that Filemaker exported, but
it is greyed out. I can only select the folder that contains the exported
csv or tab file.

I can then specify the type of file, and the field separator, etc., but the
actual file never gets selected.


I would appreciate any help with this, after several hours trying every
combination I could come up with, I'm at a lost.

Thanks!
Charles




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On 24/06/2012 07:03, Charles218 wrote:

Hi Charles,

>
> Using the "Address Data Source" wizard, I can not get everything in place. I
> have a data document that is exported from Filemaker Pro, I tried "tab" and
> "csv" both. Is there a correct file type that I should use? Here are the
> steps that I am taking,
>

Which separator did you use for your FMPro export to CSV ?
Which file extension did you give your "CSV" file ?

If your file doesn't have a CSV extension it won't work.
If your file is TSV instead of CSV, then it won't work either. By
default, I seem to recall that FMPro exports as TSV and not CSV (despite
calling it CSV).

>
> Path to the text files - I browse to the file that Filemaker exported, but
> it is greyed out. I can only select the folder that contains the exported
> csv or tab file.

If the file is greyed out, then it is not recognised as a CSV file by
LibreOffice, which means that it either has a problem with its name, the
file extension name or some other kind of structural problem which the
CSV filter in LO is unable to parse.

BTW, if you want to make your mailmerge datasource editable, there are
ways of exporting data and structure from FMPro and using that to create
a LO database file (which will contain editable data sets).


Alex


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Tom,

I'm sorry for the omission, it was quite late when I posted and I was worn out. I am using LO 3.5.4.2 on my MacBook Pro with OS 10.6.8.

I was using the guide "Writer Guide: Full book", "3.4.x branch ", beginning at about page 301.

Charles

If you have Filemaker Pro, you should have an ODBC driver and connect directly to Filemaker Pro without any text file.

Mail merge from plain text extremely simple:

A The text file
Create a dedicated directory for the text file and for similar files to come.
Open the text file in a text editor (notepad).

In the office suite:
File>New>Database...
[X] Connect to existing database
Type: <Text>
Specify the _directory_ where you put the file (and similar files to come)
and all the details to read your text file properly (column delimiter, encoding, text delimiter, file name suffix)
[X] Register the database
Store the database.
Close the database
Forget the database. It only stores information about the format and the location of your data in a directory of text files.

#############################################
All the above steps are configuration for all serial letters to come. Just replace your text file or drop more text files in the same directory.
#############################################

In Writer hit F4
Browse your file (table) in the left pane and select it.
When your data appear in the right pane, grab the required column headers and drop them into your document where you can arrange the resulting fields like you wourl do with any other field for dates and page numbers.
When you print, confirm that you are going to print a serial letter. In the dialog you can filter, sort and select records.

If you store your serial letter as a template, all you need to do next time is writing the letter text and selecting the receipients.

Charles218 wrote:       Have you opened the file you exported from Filemaker using a text
editor? This should tell you what the structure is and what separators
you need to use.
      When the wizard asks what the file to use, it only wants to know
what folder contains the file. It will then open all the text files in
that folder. This is why any text data sources should have their
separate folder.
      As Alex mentioned, you should also look at the file's extension.
If the file has the correct structure, renaming the file extension to
.csv might help.

--Dan


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Dan Lewis wrote

      Have you opened the file you exported from Filemaker using a text
editor? This should tell you what the structure is and what separators
you need to use.

Exactly. In the end it is just text with a certain structure and nothing magic.

      When the wizard asks what the file to use, it only wants to know
what folder contains the file. It will then open all the text files in
that folder. This is why any text data sources should have their
separate folder.

      As Alex mentioned, you should also look at the file's extension.
If the file has the correct structure, renaming the file extension to
.csv might help.

--Dan

This is because the wizard does exactly the same as you can do manually when you connect a Base document with a folder of similarly structured text files. Therefore it asks for the exact same information. Folder name, file name extension (.csv, .tsv, .txt, .anything), separators (comma, semicolon, tabs, whatever). Once you've done that your folder of text files is a data source, a repository of tabuar data.

Nevertheless, if the exporting Filemaker database resides in the same network you may ask the person who exports the text files if he can set up an ODBC data source. Then you could read from the database without any text file import nor export. You (or the "wizard") simply connect a Base document to a named ODBC source and always use the current database data instead of data copies in text files which may be out of date.

Hi :)
So, Base can't directly read FMPro's back-end?

Is there a back-end that both FMPro and Base could read?

Sorry, i am just curious.  Possibly someone has already answered this.  If so then i will find it when i go back through my emails. 
Regards from
Tom :) 


--- On Sun, 24/6/12, Alex Thurgood <[hidden email]> wrote:

From: Alex Thurgood <[hidden email]>
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Need Help Setting Up Mail Merge
To: [hidden email]
Date: Sunday, 24 June, 2012, 9:20

On 24/06/2012 07:03, Charles218 wrote:

Hi Charles,

>
> Using the "Address Data Source" wizard, I can not get everything in place. I
> have a data document that is exported from Filemaker Pro, I tried "tab" and
> "csv" both. Is there a correct file type that I should use? Here are the
> steps that I am taking,
>

Which separator did you use for your FMPro export to CSV ?
Which file extension did you give your "CSV" file ?

If your file doesn't have a CSV extension it won't work.
If your file is TSV instead of CSV, then it won't work either. By default, I seem to recall that FMPro exports as TSV and not CSV (despite calling it CSV).

>
> Path to the text files - I browse to the file that Filemaker exported, but
> it is greyed out. I can only select the folder that contains the exported
> csv or tab file.

If the file is greyed out, then it is not recognised as a CSV file by LibreOffice, which means that it either has a problem with its name, the file extension name or some other kind of structural problem which the CSV filter in LO is unable to parse.

BTW, if you want to make your mailmerge datasource editable, there are ways of exporting data and structure from FMPro and using that to create a LO database file (which will contain editable data sets).


Alex


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Le 24/06/2012 07:03, Charles218 a écrit :
That's WAD (working as designed): a text database is just a directory
containing the text file(s). Any text file you add to the "database"
becomes available as a table.

So just go on and you'll find you text file as a table in the text DB.

--
Jean-Francois Nifenecker, Bordeaux



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Hello to All,

First, thanks to everyone that has chimed in to help, I'm not used to receiving the number of quality replies that you folks have offered. What a wonderful forum.

Since I was overwhelmed with responses, I'm trying to respond to all in this one post. I believe that I have the problem solved, or at least moved further down the road.

When I initiate the print command, LO asks if I want to print a form letter. Responding with "Yes" brings up and error message that "The Data Source could not be found", hence I stopped and tried to figure out where the connection problem was. It appears though that it did indeed did find the source. Andreas mentioned to press F4, and when doing so there was my data, though LO thinks that it is header info so I will need to re-configure to either tell LO there is no header data, or have FM export header data.

It would be helpful if the entry in the "Guide" would mention that the path to the data actually goes to the folder that contains the data rather then the actual data file.

Also, I am intrigued by the possibly of setting this up with an OBDC as the data source and eliminating the text file all together. Even though I am very limited in my knowledge in this area, this sounds like something worth trying.

Thanks again to each of you!!!

Charles

Dan Lewis wrote

      Have you opened the file you exported from Filemaker using a text
editor? This should tell you what the structure is and what separators
you need to use.

Exactly. In the end it is just text with a certain structure and nothing magic.

      When the wizard asks what the file to use, it only wants to know
what folder contains the file. It will then open all the text files in
that folder. This is why any text data sources should have their
separate folder.

      As Alex mentioned, you should also look at the file's extension.
If the file has the correct structure, renaming the file extension to
.csv might help.

--Dan

This is because the wizard does exactly the same as you can do manually when you connect a Base document with a folder of similarly structured text files. Therefore it asks for the exact same information. Folder name, file name extension (.csv, .tsv, .txt, .anything), separators (comma, semicolon, tabs, whatever). Once you've done that your folder of text files is a data source, a repository of tabuar data.

Nevertheless, if the exporting Filemaker database resides in the same network you may ask the person who exports the text files if he can set up an ODBC data source. Then you could read from the database without any text file import nor export. You (or the "wizard") simply connect a Base document to a named ODBC source and always use the current database data instead of data copies in text files which may be out of date.

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NAML

Alex,,

  I am sorry, but I am not tech help and I have no idea what you are
talking about. I also do not use any Microsoft products and am
completely unable to assist with them.

I have no idea how I ended up getting shown as a help contact.

My problem is ending the massive overload of email from libre office.

Good luck, but I can't help

Chuck




On 06/24/12 01:20, Alex Thurgood wrote:
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-------- Original Message  --------
From: Charles J. Lingo <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2012 11:43:51 -0700


Hi Chuck,

No, you are not shown as a help contact. You have at some time (probably
unintentionally) signed up as a subscriber to this mailing list. Where a
copy of every post to the list is sent out to thousands of subscribers,
of which you are one. There is a very good explanation, together with
instructions about how to unsubscribe on this page:
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/

Hope this helps.

Dave



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