Mail merge is a useful feature of LibreOffice Writer to create mass mailings. This feature allows you to insert data from external source like LibreOffice Calc or LibreOffice Base into the letter you are writing (the letter template). The data can be name, address, company name or any other type of data with different entries. This feature would facilitate school life, for example, writing the essay. But the site domywriting easily copes with this problem.
Imagine this scenario.
You want to create a party invitation to 1000 of you colleagues, friends and families. Since you want to create an intimate invitation, you want to add every single name of the people you invite to the invitation letter. With mail merge, you don’t need to type all of the names of your prospective guests one by one to your letter. Instead, you can create a database of your guest using LibreOffice Calc or LibreOffice Base and import it using mail merge.
Here is how to use mail merge on LibreOffice Writer. In this example, we will be using LibreOffice Calc to create the guest database.
- Create the guest database on LibreOffice (regular LibreOffice Calc file in ODS format). In this example, we will be adding the address of each guest other than name. Following is the example.
- Write your invitation letter using LibreOffice Writer or open an existing template if you already have one.
- Once done writing the letter template, go to Edit -> Exchange Database.
- On the appearing window dialog, click the Browse button and select the guest database (the LibreOffice Calc file) you have just created above.
- Double-click the imported database. This will display the contained sheets. If your database file has multiple sheets, select the sheet that contains your guest data and click the Define button.
- Next, Go to View -> Data Source to view the entries of the database you have imported above. The database entries will be open right above your letter.
- Click the column heading of the entries you want to add to the letter and drag it to the part you want. Take a look at the screencast below.
- Next, go to Tools -> Mail Merge Wizard.
- On the Mail Merge Wizard, simply click the Next buttons until the Finish button. There is nothing need to be changed on this wizard.
- Done! Try to click the next button and see the change on your letter.
The next step is up to you. Whether you want to print your letter or save it. If you want to save it, click the Saved Merged Documents button. To print it right away, click the Print Merged Documents button.
