On the subject of mailmerge...

users
#1

In another email I said that I had given up on using mailmerge, since the labels never print out as you want them to. My problem is this:

I have a laser printer, Brother HL-5340D, excellent in all ways. I print from a Mac running OSX 10.6.6 and LibO 3.3.1. I use A4 sized sheets with three columns and eight rows of labels.

Avery L7159 has the same number of labels but they are slightly different. On the Avery L7159 format, the labels have a small vertical margin between labels. On my sheets, there is no vertical margin. This should actually be better for my problem, but doesn't help.

What I get when I print is the first column of labels begin to print at the extreme left margin so that a couple of letters are missing, notwithstanding that the Avery labels don't actually extend to the extreme left margin. The second column starts printing in the middle of the margin between labels 1 and 2, so that the first letter comes at the extreme left edge of the label. The same thing happens with label 3, which, additionally prints all the way to the extreme right edge, notwithstanding that the Avery label doesn't extend all the way to the extreme right edge, so that letters are missing from long names or addresses which don't wrap as they should.

I have tried creating my own custom label template, but there are so many other problems with the mailmerge system that I've given up. For example, what I get when I manage to get labels with the wizard is this:

Page 1 contains one row of the A's, three of them, of course, then 7 rows of labels with field names. Page 2 starts with the fourth name in the list and continues "normally", as do subsequent pages. I place "normally" in quotation marks since the normal form of the labels is, as I said earlier, lacking letters on each label.

If any kind soul has a custom template which they think works with labels of this type, Avery L7159 or ones which extend to the extreme left and right edges, and is willing to share it, I'll give them, perhaps not gold, but undying admiration and gratitude.

But basically, I think the mailmerge system could do with a good working over. That, or the instructions on how to use it, either manually or with the wizard. Fortunately my labels are only around 200, for our local gardening club, so I can cope with doing it more or less manually, but it would be nice to be able to automatise it.

TIA

//James

#2

There is an openoffice extension for all different label forms in table form, which have worked marvelously well for me. I haven't checked if the are available in LibreOffice or not. You can also download the complete set of forms from worldlabel.com. The link is on the right hand side of their home page. Worldlabel seems very supportive of open source!

#3

In another email I said that I had given up on using mailmerge, since the labels never print out as you want them to.  My problem is this:

I gave up on mail merges a long time ago because the interface for
creating just about anything was so arcane I couldn't use it, but that
was with OOo before LibO came along.

I have a laser printer, Brother HL-5340D, excellent in all ways.  I print from a Mac running OSX 10.6.6 and LibO 3.3.1.  I use A4 sized sheets with three columns and eight rows of labels.

:

If any kind soul has a custom template which they think works with labels of this type, Avery L7159 or ones which extend to the extreme left and right edges, and is willing to share it, I'll give them, perhaps not gold, but undying admiration and gratitude.

Have you tried to use the pre-supplied labels in LibO? I don't use A4
paper, and there are a whole bunch of "features" of the labels,
especially the 5160 (3x10) address label template, that just irritate
the hell out of me, they might be what you need.

Some of the mentioned features are:

1) Multi-page label sheets just don't work right - they tend to lose
whole labels in what I think was a random pattern that drove me up the
wall. (I wound up doing multiple single sheets for my holiday address
labels.)

2) The label patterns are wider than the real labels on the sheet, so
I have to indent each column in order to get them to print without
losing a line or two of lettering off the left edge, sometimes in all
three columns.

3) The vertical alignment is tricky at best and I have to use blank
lines different font heights to get it right (a vertical
alignment/centering feature would be REALLY nice here...).

4) The mechanics of copying labels on the sheet are awful. IIRC, you
have to copy into each destination label individually, and there is no
way to select a whole column, row or the whole sheet (or maybe just no
way to do so with the keyboard - I think the mouse select may work
here) and paste into them intelligently. (The Avery label maker macro
set for MS Word used to do a lot of these things really well, but I
left Windows, Word and Avery behind as a standard word processing
environment a long time ago, and those labels, or pretty much any
other similarly formatted document, do not translate well between Word
and OOo/LO at all, in either direction.)

5) This also happens with the 4x20 format for small return-address
labels, but I have that one set up and working and I don't need to
mess with it as much.

But basically, I think the mailmerge system could do with a good working over.  That, or the instructions on how to use it, either manually or with the wizard.  Fortunately my labels are only around 200, for our local gardening club, so I can cope with doing it more or less manually, but it would be nice to be able to automatise it.

If it's anything like OOo's horrid mail-merge, I totally agree....

#4

Most of the problems listed here with labels are not problems. The table style templates, available from worldlabel.com or in openoffice extensions, work great. The text is centered vertically in each label since they are table cells. It is very easy to change the top margin to adjust for your top margin for your printer. Simply do it through the page format for the top margin. For the left margin of each column, you just drag the top one and all of the cells below it will be the same. I first had a problem when printing multiple pages of labels from openoffice base. It would miss one database entry when it went to each new page. After following instructions on setting up the page, that problem was easily overcome. The labels print perfectly from the top of the sheet to the bottom of the sheet without the alignment problems you have with the Microsoft style and default style labels in openoffice, even if you are printing small, 60 label sheets filled with small text. A person using Microsoft Word doing that had major alignment problems on a 60 label sheet once the page was two-thirds printed. I put the information into OpenOffice with the table style label forms, and they printer perfectly. The table style templates are also very easy to paste data into multiple cells, or even an entire page, at one time.

#5

Thanks, Don, but the Worldlabel site is only for US sizes, and doesn't appear to have A4. However, I'll take a look at the OOo site, and see if I can find the extension.

//James

#6

try this:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooolabels/

#7

Hi James,

I'm sorry about the A-4. I hadn't checked that.I needed to modify one label template for one size label they didn't have a template for. It may be possible for you to make your own. Since they are tables it was very easy to do.

#8

Thanks, Gordon, but that appears to be a back door to Worldlabel. Until I know I can find A4, I'll take a raincheck.

//James

#9

I posted that link because the file HAS A4 labels in it....

#10

OK thanks, Gordon, sorry, misunderstood.

These are ott files, so I assume they aren't anything to be used with a new attempted mailmerge, but rather by copying and pasting addresses into each table area?

//James

#11

Hi James,

The ott extension simply means they are templates. Simply follow instructions for putting in your database fields for mail merge and they work fine!

Don