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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Comments

[Jeff]

What if you checked the box for 'Do not show this warning again' in the 'Do you want to print a form letter?' window before reading this article? Can I salvage my settings to be able to to use this option when printing the page? Thanks for the article and for your help.

[Solveig]

Hi Jeff,

there's a solution here.
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=32140

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/10/how_to_get_the_.html

Also, you can install the latest version of OOo which doesn't have that checkbox at all (and doesn't need it).

Solveig

[Dennis]

I read your suggestions for making a template to print out envelopes, followed your directions and IT WORKED! THE FIRST TIME NO LESS! You're SOMEKINDA genius of modern science! Thanks!

[Eileen Hardy]

If I had not found your instructions I believe I never would have figured out how to print an envelope from Open Office. Why do they make it so difficult when you make it so easy! Thank you for the step by step picture instructions.

[Fozia]

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