Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 19444
Hidden Paragraph does not hide missing field
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:38:26 UTC
Open a new labels file and insert in many mail merge fields. Use the hidden paragraph function with the condition Not(Field) to hide all lines in case they are empty. After testing the mail merge use Edit > Exchange Database to change the source of the document to a second data source (with the same field names bar one) and then perform the mail merge. The field that is not present in new data source is printed as a blank line, rather than hiding it. In the example labels below if you create a data source with the field names {Forename, Surname, Address1-4, Postcode} and leave out Company, you can open the labels file and perform the mail merge. As the field Company does not exist it should be hidden as the hidden paragraph function is set to not(Company) which is true. Instead it appears as a blank line. This did work fine under 1.0 and has only come to light as the hidden functions have been broken since beta1 until RC4. I think this warrants inclusion before the 1.1 release.
Created attachment 9199 [details] labels with extra field Company that's not part of data source
Created attachment 9200 [details] data source to set up use with labels (after Exchange Database)
please do not set an issue to new without any QA member confirmed it reassigned to jw
set target to OOo later set prio to P3
Jack: I was a previous QA member but have been working solely under the DBA side of things for quite a while now. I had confirmed this issue on several different machines and installs, forgot to add that, Sorry.
Confirmed as working under OOo 1.0 Now part of tracker bug 19568
This issue can also make the field appear as <Field> on the result of the mail merge, rather than just a blank line. Adding new data source with 6 columns, but column Four has already deleted (a common occurence). Use the second merge document to perform the mail merge and you can see more clearly what happens even though there is a hidden paragraph on the line when column Four was supposed to be printed.
Created attachment 9312 [details] Data Source
Created attachment 9313 [details] Merge Document with Hidden Paragraphs
Created attachment 9314 [details] Result of Mail Merge
I can't reproduce the "blank line effect" (OOo 1.1 RC4). I see <Company> or <Four> (depending on your sample docs). In those cases the placholder <Company> IS the content of the field which is then not empty anymore and is displayed occordingly. To make this disappear, you'd have to write the condition: 'not(Company) OR <Company>'
closing