[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 116278] MAILMERGE (Labels): Unused labels at end of last page should be completely blank

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=116278

--- Comment #6 from Ted Lee <tmplee at gmail.com> ---
I'm afraid I can't say "WORKSFORME" because it doesn't!  My "bug", if you are
willing to call it that, is that the label function does not work the way a
user expects it to: If I have only 25 records in my database, only 25 labels
should be printed! -- but, say, the page has room for 30 labels, the function
will print any static data in the master label in the remaining 5 labels.  In
principle I don't understand why it should be so hard to make it work the way
it should, but I do sense that the label function was added after mail merge
and used that in the simplest way possible to accomplish the task and somehow
the present behavior is a side-effect of that implementation.  The strange
floating "synchronize" window that shows up to implement labels is an
indication that it is a strange, albeit I am sure clever, design.

Yes, it would be relatively easy to add a static column containing a comma (or
other static text like a To: or From:) in a small database.  But if it were one
that had thousands of records it wouldn't be.  I do believe, however, one could
easily create a view of the database that added an extra computed field that
simply was a constant, and use that view to drive the label engine, but I
wasn't quickly able to figure out how to do that.  The built-in help for
databases isn't very helpful when it comes to creating views and I was too lazy
to dig around the net for a better tutorial or description on how do to it.  (I
am sure you can create a view that, say, creates a field C that is the sum of
fields A and B, but I couldn't figure out how to do that. But if you can do
that, you ought to be able to create a field that is just a constant value.) 
Still not something you ought to have to do to get the label feature to work
right, but it isn't much more burdensome than what you have to do to suppress
printing blank lines.  So I'm willing to tag the bug as WorkAroundAvailable (or
however that is marked) and of course would recommend the help text for labels
has something on the topic (as well as how to suppress blank lines.)

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