Suppose you have a spreadsheet file with names in two columns (e.g. first and last). Here is the convoluted procedure for generating mailing labels from such a list.

First, make sure that the spreadsheet is in the StarOffice 7 format. Open it, and insert a row in the very beginning. This row needs to contain names (labels) for the columns. In our example, put "First" and "Last" in this row (without quotes). Save the spreadsheet.

With any document open, the menu "Tools" will show an item "Data sources". Select it. In the dialog box that shows up, click "New data source". Enter a descriptive name for it (e.g. "Contributors"), select "Spreadsheet" as the database type, then click on the button on the right to select the spreadsheet file. Click OK when done.

Now go to File -> New and select "Labels". Click on the Labels tab in the window that opens, and set the type of labels you plan on using, e.g. "Avery Letter Size", then "5160 Address". In the Database drop-down menu select the data source you defined in the previous step, then Table -> Sheet 1. You will now be able to see the names of columns from the spreadsheet in the "Database field" menu.

Highlight "Last" and click the big arrow pointing to the left to "move" this field into the label. Something like should show up in the "Label text" box. Suppose you want the label to print "Behr, Eric": simply type a comma and a space in the "Label text", then go to the "Database field" menu again, select "First" and click the left arrow again.

Obviously if your spreadsheet had a third and fourth column called "Str" and "City", you would now type Return in the "Label text" box, then select the "Str" database field, click the arrow, etc. You are creating a template with "variable fields" that, in the end, will be replaced by data from the spreadsheet.

When you are done, click the Format tab and verify that the labels you selected have the right size/spacing as the ones you'll be printing on. You also want to go to the Options tab and make sure that "Entire page" is selected, and that "Synchronize contents" is checked.

Click on the "New Document" button after setting all this. You will see a page with labels, each containing ", " (and whatever else you put in there). Use the View menu to select/unselect the Fields item. This will switch between viewing just the names of columns, and a more detailed definition of where the data are coming from. In the detailed view you ought to see something like "Contributors.Sheet1.0.Last, Contributors.Sheet1.0.First" and (important!) an item such as "Next record:Contributors.Sheet1".

A major annoyance: for some reason this "master document" has page dimensions slightly smaller than it should. Go to Format -> Page and under Format select Letter.

Click the "Synchronize Labels" button that is hovering somewhere over the document. Make sure you have the View -> Fields unchecked. You are now ready to generate the labels. Go to Tools -> Mail Merge, click OK in the dialog that says "From this document". A second major annoyance: there is no easy way to preview the result! With a short list it isn't a big deal, but in a longer job you risk wasting many pages if some step went wrong... If you are brave enough, you can just send the job to the printer, and hope for the best.

If you do want to see what will come out, in the Mail Merge dialog choose "File" rather than "Printer" as the destination. If you have more than one page, you may want to select a small subset of records, e.g. from 1 to 6; otherwise you will end up with a multitude of files, one per page (another weirdness).

This should create a file such as "Aaron0.sxw", which you can open like any other word processing file. When you do, it will ask "Update all links?", whatever that means. Say No, or else you'll end up with all labels containing the same name... don't ask me why. If this file looks like it should, chances are that you can do Mail Merge again, this time with all records and Printer for output, and you ought to get what you want.

The good news is that after you go through all this once, and save the master document, you can reuse it with little trouble, even after the list in the spreadheet changes. Just remember to "Synchronize Labels" before doing the Mail Merge.