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[Nikolaus Filus <nfilus@xxxxxxx>]

mail merge has no function without base, so it is useless to ship it
without base. Either put both or none on the standard CD.

-- 
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 !