OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

In OpenOffice mail merge documents, you see the field names like Name onscreen, not the data like Bob. The data appears when you print.

I just wanted to clarify something since I hate to see people thinking they're doing something wrong when they're doing it right.

Here's an example using labels.  This is how it's supposed to look. You won't see the data onscreen, you'll see the field names like first name. When you print, the correct data will appear.

If you don't know want to print all the data, you can pick the ones you want in this  window. Just choose File > Print, click yes that you want to print a form letter, and then select the records you want in this window. Select the first record, hold down Ctrl and select the next one, and so on.

Or specify a range.

Then just click OK.

Making life with labels a little easier

Labels don't always match up perfectly, especially those little return address labels.

What can you do, besides prayer and fasting, and wasting labels?

I try to just give the labels some room to make mistakes without screwing up my text, by putting some space around the label text. It's nothing all that complicated, but I hate to think of dealing with labels without it.

See also this entry, another way of tweaking labels.

First, you make your labels. Do whatever you need to do, but on the Options tab, select Synchronize contents. Then click New Document to create the label sheet.

You'll get something like this, the red arrows particularly with very small labels where the default font size, 12, doesn't fit.

Next, select the upper left label and make the font as small as you need to to fit the content on. You might need to just select a line or two at a time or select All. Apply a 6-point font or less if necessary, and I like to use a sans serif font like Nimbus Sans L or Helvetica. Now you can see all the content.

With the first label selected, find the little hourglass shaped icon on the ruler, marking the left margin.

And drag that icon to the right to give the text a little breathing room on the left.

Now that you've given it room on the left, give it room on the top. Click to the left of the first line of text in the first label and press Return.

Now with your cursor in the new blank line, type in the font size box, perhaps a 4, and press Return.

And now there's a nice scosh of blank text above the content, too.

The label is how you want, so just click that Synchronize button to make all the labels like the first one.

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Printing Envelopes in OpenOffice.org Writer (Repost)

I ran into Christian Einfeldt at Linuxworld, who mentioned that he had some questions about printing  envelopes. It's a good perennial topic, so I'm rereposting.

(Originally posted December 2, 2005)

I get a lot of questions about envelopes. A lot. I wrote an article for TechTarget.com about how to do envelopes in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

I included some templates there; here are the same envelope templates for OpenOffice.org 2.0.

• Envelope template, not hooked up to a data source, using frames
• Envelope template, not hooked up to a data source, not using frames

The article is long and detailed. Here are the key points.

• You need to get to know your printer and let it know to expect envelope shapes, not letter or A4 shapes.

• You also need to fiddle around for a while and figure out where--left, right, perpendicular, parallel--in the tray your printer expects envelopes. Buy a box of cheap envelopes and expect to waste a few while you experiment.

• Then make sure that your envelope document is set up to print to the envelope size your printer is expecting. Envelope 10 is good.

• You can type in your data for the envelope or use a data source. My article goes over both.
• The simplest way is to just choose File > New > Envelope, then Format > Page Size and instead of Letter or A4, choose Envelope 10 and change the orientation to landscape.  Then either with standard margin formatting or with frames, put the text where you want.
• As another way to create the envelope document, you can also choose Insert > Envelope, and use the three-tabbed window that appears.
• Print the envelopes separately from your letter or other document that goes with the envelope. It complicates things too much with the paper size that the printer expects.

Then just print the envelope. (If you're using data sources, click Yes in the dialog box that appears asking if you want to print a form letter.)

The next time you want envelopes, just use that same document you already created, and change the addresses. Either save the document in myimportantdocuments\envelopes, or if you're a template kind of person, make it a template. (File > Templates > Save, select a category and name the template, then choose File > New > Templates and Documents and pick your envelope template.

Note: Doing it in 2.0 is quite similar to how to do it in OpenOffice.org 1.1. Here are my posts how to do that; they're excerpted from my OpenOffice.org workbooks.

• OpenOffice.org 1.x Mail Merges, Envelopes, and Labels
• OpenOffice.org 1.x Plain Labels and Envelopes

Tip on Printer Setup
Some of the pain of envelopes is the printer setup. Here's a GREAT tip from Miriam:
"I just read your envelope printing tip. Instead of constantly changing and checking the printer settings, I add another instance of the printer, configure it for envelopes and name it "envelope." When I want to print an envelope I choose this printer instead of the default one. That way my settings are always the same."

Envelope Mantra
Here's the other main point I want to make sure everyone understands.

Envelopes aren't too bad once you figure out how to do it the first time. Honest.

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Printing Exactly the Records You Want to Print for a Mail Merge in OpenOffice Labels, Envelopes, or other Documents

Used to be, it was hard to just print the records you wanted to print in a mail merge, in OpenOffice.org mail merges.

Bob  Jones   121 Ludlow
Marie Hanson  1688 Oak
Kathy Bates  88 Pearl

What if you're mad at Marie, though, as well as Jean, John, and Xavier,  and just want to print a holiday letter to Bob and to Kathy and the other 119 people in your list who you're still speaking to?

You had to either go through the HUGE and complex mail merge wizard, or just print a letter each for Marie, Jean, John, and Xavier, and throw them away.

However, in 2.something of OpenOffice.org, you can just Ctrl - Select the records to print.

1. Make your mail merge document: labels, letter, envelopes, whatever.

2. Choose File > Print and say Yes, you want to print a form letter. NEVER mark the checkbox.

3. In the window that appears, you can scroll down to view the database and table you're using at the left side. This isn't necessary but it might help you feel more organized.

4. Click on the light gray box next to the first record you want to print.  Hold down Ctrl and click on the light gray box next to the next record you want to print. And so on.

You'll see that at the left side,  Selected Records is now marked.

5. Now just select Printer or File to print as you normally would, and click OK. The normal printing window will appear if you select Printer.

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