How to do mail merge in oo calc

Mail merge in OpenOffice Calc!

Mail merge is a powerful feature that allows you to combine data from a database or a spreadsheet with a template document to create multiple output documents. In OpenOffice Calc, you can perform mail merge using the "Mail Merge" tool. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you get started:

Prerequisites:

1. Make sure you have OpenOffice Calc installed on your computer.
2. Create a spreadsheet with the data you want to use for the mail merge. This spreadsheet should have the following structure:
   • Column A: Unique identifier for each record (e.g., customer ID, order number, etc.)
   • Column B: Field 1 (e.g., customer name, order date, etc.)
   • Column C: Field 2 (e.g., customer address, order total, etc.) *...and so on
3. Create a template document (e.g., a Word document or a text file) that you want to use as the output document. This document should have placeholders for the data you want to merge.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Open your spreadsheet and select the entire data range (A1:C10, for example).
2. Go to the "Tools" menu and select "Mail Merge" (or press Ctrl+Shift+M).
3. In the "Mail Merge" dialog box, select the template document you created (or browse to it).
4. Choose the data range you selected in step 1 as the "Data source".
5. Click "Next" to proceed to the "Merge" step.
6. In the "Merge" step, you can specify the merge options:
   • "Merge type": Choose whether you want to merge the data into a new document or overwrite an existing document.
   • "Merge order": Specify the order in which the data should be merged (e.g., alphabetical, numerical, etc.).
   • "Merge fields": Select the fields you want to merge from the spreadsheet into the template document.
7. Click "Merge" to start the mail merge process.
8. OpenOffice Calc will create a new document (or overwrite the existing one) with the merged data.

Tips and Variations:

• You can use the "Mail Merge" tool to merge data from multiple spreadsheets or databases.
• You can also use the "Mail Merge" tool to merge data into a PDF document.
• To customize the merge process, you can use OpenOffice Calc's built-in scripting language, LibreOffice Basic.
• If you encounter any issues during the mail merge process, you can troubleshoot by checking the "Mail Merge" log file (located in the "OpenOffice Calc" directory).

That's it! With these steps, you should be able to perform a mail merge in OpenOffice Calc.