https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=105534
Bug ID: 105534
Summary: Merge is too complicated and inflexible to use
Product: LibreOffice
Version: 5.1.4.2 release
Hardware: All
OS: Windows (All)
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Severity: normal
Priority: medium
Component: LibreOffice
Assignee: libreoffice-bugs@lists.freedesktop.org
Reporter: mich...@casparinstitute.org
The merge is too complicated and to inflexible. PLEASE compare with
WordPerfect. I have been using LO merge for a client, having *finally* produced
a 32 step procedure to remind myself how to do the same thing once a month ...
because the nonprofit client can't afford WordPerfect and HATES Word. But for
new projects, Libre Office's merge-print is much too complicated for me to use
... and I am a veteran merge-printer with decades of practice.
For starters, users might want to set up their own fields, but LO's fields are
fixed. For an efficient mail-merge it is often useful to combine full names --
not everyone's name falls into the neat First Name Last Name format; my wife
and I have different last names. A Fullname field is much better. Why can't
variables have their own names, as in WordPerfect?
Next, connecting a spreadsheet full of data is fraught with problems in LO, but
transparent in WP. That, too should be easier ... even easier than WP, that
requires a coding step to get the fields identified. Why not require the first
row to be the headings (as in the LO Calc sort) and go from there?
There is then considerable unintuitive clunkiness to the LO merge process:
files that appear to be saved but aren't. For a first timer, the learning curve
is a wall.
I would happily interact with the Merge team, and work on beta-testing a
simplified wizard -- that's surely the way to go.
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug._______________________________________________
Libreoffice-bugs mailing list
Libreoffice-bugs@lists.freedesktop.org
https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-bugs
