[KLUG Members] Open Office, database

[Paul VandenBosch]

I have been using Open Office at work and have found it to be almost a
complete replacement for MS Office.  I hope to be able to recommend it to
the big chief as a complete replacement for MS Office.

Two areas where it is not doing the job are:

1. Printing of envelope addresses and mailing labels

The envelope and mailing label problem could just be that I haven't
figured it out yet, but I have spent hours trying to get OO to work on
these items.  This is a critical function in our organization, because we
send out many mailings and our postal service requires that all envelopes
be printed or we pay a surcharge on postage.  So if I can't get the
envelope and mailing labels to work, there is no way that our organization
could migrate to OO.  Specifically, it is very difficult to get from a
spreadsheet with names, addresses and City/State/Zip fields to a page of
mailing labels.  I have been able to work around the problem in a number
of ways, but I need a feature that works well and is easy to use.  Has
anyone had luck with this?

2. No database is included in Open Office.

Is there an open source database program that will work together with OO
that is relatively user friendly?  We are working on Windows 98, 2000 and
XP.  I know of PostgreSql and MySQL.  MySQL seems more of a back end
database, I need something that the average user can put together mailing
lists or employee time logs, etc.  Hopefully with a graphical user
interface rather than SQL code.  The employees are familiar with Microsoft
Access now.  Is there a front end to one of these open source database
programs that would allow a somewhat inexperienced user to create tables
and enter data?  Maybe Postgresql has something like this? phpMyAdmin
might be a way to go, although it is pretty slow (over the net anyway) for
data entry.

Sorry about the non-linux content, I'm working on converting OS's too, but
that is a bigger step.

-- 
Paul VandenBosch
Guide to Sailing and Cruising Stories
http://cruisenews.net