Once the envelope is laid out, merging works just like for letters.

Using mail merge for labels

Sometimes instead of printing envelopes directly, you want to print on labels and put them on envelopes. Even when printing envelopes, our receptionist likes to keep a sheet of “labels” printed on plain paper for each mailing, as a record of who received the mailing. Go to File?New?Labels to open the Labels dialog (see figure 6). Lay out the fields as you did in the Envelope dialog, and choose the appropriate labels under Format. Since Avery is a de facto standard in label formats, whatever brand of labels you use will probably provide an equivalent Avery number. If you do not know the number, you can browse through the list until you find one with dimensions that match the labels you are using. It is important to note that where the dimensions are shown, the first pair of numbers are the physical dimension of each label, and the second pair in parenthesis gives the number of labels across and down on the sheet. In the screenshot example, Avery 5160 has 3 labels across each sheet and 10 down, for a total of 30 on the sheet, with each label measuring 2.63” x 1”. If you find a format that matches your labels, you will not need to visit the Format tab. If you need to use it for an odd format, it is self-explanatory. On the Options tab, you will want to mark “Synchronize contents”. You will see why shortly. You can also specify what printer you will be using on the Format tab. When you are finished, click on “New Document”.

Figure 6: setting up labels

Other than the problem with line breaks mentioned in the previous section, the biggest problem I have seen with labels is that there is no way to scroll within a label if the text is longer than will show on a single label. This can be a problem if you have a lot of fields. The only solution I have found is to select the entire label (Edit?Select All or Ctrl+A), change the font to a smaller size, do your editing, then set the font back to the desired size.

If you choose to start with a blank label template and insert fields as I showed you with letters, or if you are just curious, you might wonder how to make a different record show up on each label. Place your cursor at the end of the label, go to Insert?Fields?Other, and go to the Database tab. Click on Next record on the left, and the table name on the right. Click on Insert, then Close.

By now you have probably noticed a little window floating over your main window, with a single button “Synchronize Labels”. If you make any changes to the labels after you finish the Labels dialog, you can make your changes on the first label only, then click on the button. This will update all other labels to match the first label.

Once the labels are laid out, merging works just like for letters and envelopes. I would highly recommend printing a page on plain paper first and make sure the labels line up. If they don’t, you may need to use the Format tab in the Labels dialog to make everything fit. One of the biggest problems I have found with OOo is that you cannot modify an existing sheet of labels—you have to start over with the Label dialog and create a new document. If anyone knows a better solution, please add it to the comments.

Conclusion

Hopefully this answers many questions about mail merge in OOo, and makes it simpler to understand the basic steps. As I stated in another article on mailmerge recently, once you understand the basics of mail merge, you will find yourself applying it in other totally unrelated projects.

Finally let me say, for any IT person who supports OpenOffice.org users, anything written by Solveig Haugland is required reading. She has helped me overcome numerous hurdles, especially in early versions of OOo that required workarounds to get normal work done.

Thank You,

Aneslin