Bug 80970

Summary:	Serial letters printing dialog does not show when using a .ott document template
Product:	LibreOffice	Reporter:	Michael Satke <vertereponse-launchpad>
Component:	Writer	Assignee:	Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status:	UNCONFIRMED ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	medium	CC:	cno, iplaw67, todventtu
Version:	4.1.3.2 release
Hardware:	x86-64 (AMD64)
OS:	Linux (All)
Whiteboard:
i915 platform:		i915 features:

Description Michael Satke 2014-07-06 10:12:51 UTC

Serial letters printing works fine for me, as long as I print a a .odt Writer document. I use standard Libreoffice Base databases.

As soon as I try printing a untitled document, opened from a .ott writer document template, both by klicking on the "print" and using the file menu, Libreoffice asks me if I would like to print a serial letter (this is normal behaviour). When I klick "O.K." instead of opening the serial letter printing dialog, nothing happens.

At the moment my workaround is not to use .ott templates for my serial letters, which is a little sad.

Version: 4.1.3.2
Build ID: 410m0(Build:2)
OS: Ubuntu 14.04, 64 bit

Comment 1 Cor Nouws 2014-07-06 12:27:57 UTC

Hi Michael,

Thanks for reporting. Now I wonder if it isn't logic that you start a document from the template and then do a merge with the data, rather then merging within the template.. Can you pls explain that? 
Regards,
Cor

Comment 2 Michael Satke 2014-07-06 16:46:43 UTC

Thanks Cor,

up to now I used document templates to bill my customers. In the past I had many folders containing bill templates. I like templates a lot because they prevent me from overwriting them.

Then I tried to be a real pro and entered my costumer data into a LO Base database, using only one bill document template, which fetched the needed customer data from the db. All worked fine except for the serial printing. So now I save a write-protected .odt document serving as template substitute.

In my view, serial printing should work fine with templates. The template creates an untitled document, which has access to the correct data source. Note that there was no error message.

Cheers

Comment 3 Michael Satke 2014-07-09 15:17:04 UTC

I have some additional inforation:

The very first attept  to do a serial print in an ubuntu desktop session succeedes, any other try (no matter if it was the same document or any other one) brings up the bug again.

Comment 4 Michael Satke 2014-07-09 15:18:13 UTC

(My last comment was about serial printig from an .ott template.)

Comment 5 Beluga 2014-11-25 09:32:24 UTC

This should be UNCONFIRMED.

Comment 6 Cor Nouws 2014-11-26 17:47:22 UTC

Michael: create a new document from your template, and put the fields in there (maybe with an autotext).
Or create a new document from your template that already include the fields.
Both scenarios give you an odt file to work with.
Would that work for you (it does for me..)

Comment 7 Michael Satke 2014-11-26 22:08:38 UTC

(In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #6)
> Michael: create a new document from your template, and put the fields in
> there (maybe with an autotext).
> Or create a new document from your template that already include the fields.
> Both scenarios give you an odt file to work with.
> Would that work for you (it does for me..)

Tnx, but I can perform a workaround, like I mentioned, I print a lot of serial letters professionaly. My objective in reporting this is to prevent joe sixpack trying to use this functionality of LO and becoming rejected and frustrated. That's why I hope this bug can be solved with no workarounds. If too complicated, LO could prevent the user from serial printing from within a .ott by requesting the user to first save the document as an .odt file.

Comment 8 Alex Thurgood 2015-01-03 17:40:06 UTC

Adding self to CC if not already on

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