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[Tommy Trussell <tommy.trussell@xxxxxxxxx>]

I suspect base is intentionally left out of the dependencies because it
would make Ooo too big to fit on the standard CD. Given that situation,
Ooo Writer should inform the user of the need for base and/or queue the
package(s) for retrieval in the installer.

SO it's probably much more complicated than adding a dependency.

-- 
OOo mail merge doesn't work in default install - needs Base
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/333003
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Status in “openoffice.org” package in Ubuntu: Triaged

Bug description:
Binary package hint: openoffice.org

I just reinstalled my machine from scratch with Jaunty (Kubuntu alpha 4), and I got with it the default Open Office 3 install which is globally working fine.

Except that I noticed the mail merge wizard silently fails when selecting a data-source: no "table" is found and afterwards it is not possible to insert mail merge fields in the document. I tried to use spreadsheet files (.ods) and CSV files as data-sources.

This problem occurs because Open Office "Writer" needs the "Base" module (openoffice.org-base) in order to have mail merge working. And this module isn't included by default in the install CD.

I understand that adding the 'openoffice.org-base' package to the CD isn't a practicable solution, so I propose the following wordarounds:

  1.  add a dialog box in the mail-merge wizard that warns the user when the 'openoffice.org-base' package isn't installed, and
  2.  add a dummy 'openoffice.org-mailmerge' package that just depends on 'openoffice.org-base', so a user doing:

      $ apt-cache search office merge

   ... would find it.

Thanks in advance !