https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162655

--- Comment #5 from Adam Beaumont <[email protected]> ---
Hi Robert,

The spreadsheet I am using has been added to my LibreOffice instance as an
address book and I'm aware of how to register a data source for references.

As implied (and only implied as the bug report was generated late in the
evening) by step 3 in my description, I am using the mail merge toolbar to work
through record by record, rather than selecting a record in the database and
clicking on "Data to Fields". This is the approach that most users coming from
Microsoft Word will be familiar with and, typically (if you're wanting to go
through all records without needing to move your mouse), would be the method
used by most.

In 7.5.5.2, which I've had to revert to to get the job done as I knew for sure
it worked in that version, this works as expected and the document is updated
appropriately on each transition between records, both forwards and backwards
through the database (on the complete letter there are other paragraphs that
are hidden/shown through conditional statements).

In 24.2.5.2 it left various artefacts in the view and, as I couldn't guarantee
when I then either printed the documents or output the generated documents to a
file I wouldn't have to clean the produced output up, I reverted back to the
last definitely known good version for me. This happened to be the version used
at the last session start (around a year ago) for my youth group for the postal
letters produced then.

As over the course of the last year I haven't produced lots of mail merged
documents, because letters are often sent home with the youth group as a
generic document (Dear Parent/Guardian salutation) to save on postage costs. If
I produced Mail Merged letters to go home with the young people on an evening
there would be a chance it would get damaged before they left the evening's
meeting, which would mean scrabbling around to print just their copy, or
alternatively could end up with one member picking up another member's letter,
leading to a data breach.

So to reiterate the steps and hopefully clarify now that there are attached
files to this bug report:
1. Open the attached test document.
2. Connect the attached spreadsheet as a data source (only one sheet available
in the spreadsheet and has only the fields needed for the test document to
work)
3. Ensure that the mail merge toolbar is active.
4. Use the keys on the mail merge toolbar to step through the records one at a
time.

Once I have produced the documents I need to send out, I will reinstall
24.2.5.2 and attempt to grab screenshots to show what's occurring and provide
the information from Help > About LibreOffice. Additionally, I may test on my
personal MacBook Pro to see if a similar artifacting occurs in the test
document.

I hope that the context of use and the information provided here gives greater
clarity to the issues being experienced. If you would like to wait for me to
roll forward to the version at issue for screenshots to also be produced, I
should be able to dedicate some time to that within the next fortnight.

Sorry for the long comment and thanks for looking,

Adam.

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