Harold Fuchs wrote: > Jonathan Kaye wrote: >> Hi all, >> Googled high and low and nothing even close to a solution. Here's the >> problem. I'm using mail merge to convert data in a spreadsheet into a >> nice report formatted the way I want. Everything is great except that OOo >> wants to put a hard page break following every record (83,000 of them) >> but I want the records to flow from one to the other without even a line >> break. (Don't panic! There are line breaks but they don't come at the end >> of every record). So what I would like to do is one of the following: >> 1. Let OO insert the page breaks and then I use a search/replace to >> convert them all to a single space, or >> 2. Convince mail merge somehow not to put hard page breaks at the end of >> every record. Instead it can put whatever it wants as long as I can find >> it using a regular expression (so a newline is fine with me. But >> Openoffice, unlike WordPerfect (ahem ;)) makes it impossible to find page >> breaks. >> >> Any solutions will be rewarded by warm thoughts directed towards the >> genius. Thanks, >> Jonathan >> > Please try the following. It works in a simple case in which I > deliberately created a 4-page document by inserting a manual page break > before each of lines 2, 3 & 4 of what started as a 4-line document. > > * Select the entire document except the first record (Ctrl-A > probably). * Go to menu Format>Paragraph>Text Flow > * Uncheck the box labelled "Insert" under the heading "Breaks" near > the middle of the pane. > * Click OK. > > You *might* end up with a blank line after each record (I did). If so, > use the Regular Expression "^$" (without the quotes) to get rid of those > empty lines (change all occurrences of it to the null string). > Thanks to TWayne, Uwe and Harold for your kind responses. In fact I have found a solution (there may be others such as some of yours). It's a bit of a hack but it beats doing it by hand. Check this link: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=35766 and then scroll down to the post of May 02, 2006. I found the partial solution to be the one that worked with one modification. I have to delete the two \n's that mark the page break one at a time. So I start at the top of my merged file and replace \n ($ in the search field) by +++ as suggested in the post. Then I go back to the top and do it again, resulting in a string of 6 +'s where the page breaks used to be. I replace ++++++ with a space and I've got want I want.
No go down to the last 2 posting which are much more recent. The solution suggested by JohnV doesn't work for me. I get to the point where I'm inserting his fields as he suggests but the Data t0 Text icon always remains greyed out. My only choice is a mail merge which just leads me back to the same hard return problem. If anyone succeeds in getting that solution to work, I'd like to hear about it. When I get a chance I'll try the other solutions and report back. Cheers, Jonathan -- Registerd Linux user #445917 at http://counter.li.org/ Please do not send me copies of list mail. I read the lists. Thanks! --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
