Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 97237
mailmerge: when browsing for DBF files, user should be allowed to select a character set
Last modified: 2017-05-20 11:15:43 UTC
Found when DBF-files used as datasource in writer: Summary says it: character-decoding is wrong characters above 7-bit-Ascii will be treated as 8-bit-UNICODE So display of field-labels and content is broken (example german Umlaut Ä will be displayed as Ž) P2 - as OO.o can not deal with DBASE-files anymore Martin
sorry forgotten OO.o 3.0 m13 Martin
Care to attach sample files (.odb & .dbf)? Without knowing at least the settings you made in the database document, this issue is hardly confirm, deny, or fix.
frank, there is no place to set anything in that. System is DE on WIN2K. DBF-files need to be decoded by CP 437 (note ANSI and ASCII is a diffence in other languages only) UNICODE-8 is use wrong Martin
> frank, there is no place to set anything in that. Edit / Database / Properties / Additional Settings ?
ah - I see - and worked, but I am not safisified with that. First, from writer-menues there is not such setting DATABASE or PROPERTIES available Going directly to EXCHANGE DATABASE does not open a DBF-files directly but starts the build of the ODB-files, which gives the opportunity to do the appropriate settings. Okay, for a simple DBF-file quite a lot of overhead, first to build the ODB-"container", do the settings, and after selecting that "container" choosing the TABLE, allinall not very userfriendly. And wasn't it, that dbf-files should be opened directly, with doing the appropriate settings (Codepage) directly in the destination/writer-file? However, SYSTEM and UNICODE are nonsens for the defaults of DBF-files, so manual setting is always needed, and as there is no place to store the CP-settings in advance, I treat this still as a defect. And not to forget: The Help gives no information about that! But - ofcorse, having a workaround makes it P3 only, so I set that back. Martin P.S: As the content of the data-browser from "F4" and the "options.menu" may vary - while a refresh-feature for F4-windows is missing - something need to be done in that anyhow.
Okay, your last comment indicates you did something with mail merge, or database fields in Writer, which wasn't clear to me at all. Do you mind adding a step-by-step description of what you're doing to show the problem? I believe you that there is a problem, but I still didn't understand where exactly it lies. I suppose that somewhere in the work flow, OOo should ask you for an encoding, but I am not sure where. So please be as detailed and precise as possible with your problem description.
==>fs yes, it is about fields in a writer-page like forms/serialletters, just reading. the idea was to have multiple dbf-files with one record only, where the dbf is build from a DOS-application my standard-procedure is like this -- have a central directory for all dbf-files -- produce the one needed an copy it to that dir -- open old writer-form with fields -- save as new -- exchange database ---- browse to new DBF and choose it ---- select desired table in that ---- "define" -- start F4 from writer -- select the new "DBF" (which is ofcorse the ODB) -- right-click and choose edit database -- Base-Module opens - choose table -- select properties/additional settings -- set code-page to CP 437/US (manual select out of 50 items)(default is SYSTEM) -- click ok and close/save that odb -- close with F4 (settings are not refreshed) -- open f4 again finish - working (a long way - isnt it) at least two problems -- the CP-settings needs to be done always as above -- the browser-window will be overcrowed soon, as every as source choosen ODB is in there. the most prefered method would be to have to set the defaults in TOOLS/OPTIONS, but there seems to be no place to do that. Byetheway: that dbf-directory is also accessable via ODBC as a single datasource.That will show all dbf-files with the right codepage at once. frankly, I treat that way as more comfortable, athough using the propriative build-in DBase-driver has it's pros. Martin
as for your last comment: That's a shortcoming of the integration of Base in Writer. Base itself is fully capable of treating a folder as collection of tables, represented by single .dbf files. For this, just go to Edit/Database/Properties when you have the .odb open, and change the location to a folder instead of a single file. Just writer doesn't seem to offer folder browsing in this place ... For the original problem: That's a shortcoming of Writer, too. I changed the summary accordingly, changed the issue type to ENHANCEMENT (since this is what we really have here: a request for enhancement), added the "usability" keyword (since I agree that's a usability issue), confirmed the issue as valid problem, and assigned it to the responsible developer. fs->os: Your's to target, I'd say.
Target set to 3.x
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".