[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 52523] New: Messed up elements (footers, tables, graphics) on mail merge prints, okay up to LO/OO V3.2. Example attached.

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52523

             Bug #: 52523
           Summary: Messed up elements (footers, tables, graphics) on mail
                    merge prints, okay up to LO/OO V3.2. Example attached.
    Classification: Unclassified
           Product: LibreOffice
           Version: 3.5.5.3 release
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: critical
          Priority: medium
         Component: Writer
        AssignedTo: libreoffice-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
        ReportedBy: bugzilla at g-t-b.com


Created attachment 64703
  --> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=64703
Example producing messed up mail merge outputs (on current LO/OOs only)

I hope somebody will read this long post. But obviously something mysterious
happened to LO/OO after v3.2.

I consider all this a candidate for the "most annoying bug". 

I am preparing a rather complex mail letter with switching page forms (first
page to standard) and backgrounds (vector drawings from Impress, linked via
header), cr code and photo graphics, tables, one rotated text box and of course
database fields, conditional output and so forth.
I'm familiar with these things and their problems, being an early
DOS-Starwriter user (yes, even with paid licenses back in the days).

Surprisingly all of the data features worked when I started a first run with a
filled database, but the output was a complete mess though:
On some (not all) pages of the generated mail letters (4 pages each) footers
were dropped (including page numbers), on the first letter (or data set) some
(not all) graphics were gone, on the next letter they reappeared. From some
page on tables were shrunk: their text contents -no variables- were gone. Boxes
moved to the wrong page. Nearly everything was affected.

First I thought this had to do with the pdf export, but paper prints were
messed up the same way.

Then I removed "suspicious" features one by one, but that also didn't help. The
remaining elements were still corrupted, I couldn't isolate a single "critical"
element.

That led me to the idea that something more general could be buggy and I
started to test other/former versions and this approach was successful:
LibreOffice Portable 3.5.5: buggy output
Apache OpenOffice Portable 3.4: buggy output
OpenOffice Portable 3.0: EVERYTHING PERFECT (okay, some impress issues, because
of the newer graphic source, but nothing lost during the merge process)
OpenOffice Portable 3.2: EVERYTHING PERFECT (...)
All these are portable versions (Apache is from a different source - winpenpack
vs portableapps) I could find, but from the results it's obvious that the
problems don't have to do with portable or not.

The fact is that somewhere later than OO 3.2 the code (maybe of the mail merge
component) must have been changed (in both forks) and seems to be pretty
capricious now.

Attached there's an example file, which is stripped to the basics and one field
linked to the default "biblio" database, but it may be linked to any database.

If you print this as mail merge you will see all of the effects I mentioned
above.
Remember - all these strange things won't happen in versions up to 3.2!
In my original file single prints are flawless. 

BUT: Interestingly only this example file will also show another strange effect
in ALL versions:  
If you run single prints the last pages will be ROTATED (which is not shown in
the previews - many of the other problems do).

Maybe this is a key to the whole problem, so I leave it as it is and hope
somebody can fix this.

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