If you’re serious about music or DVDs, at some point you cross the threshold of having more than you can keep track of easily. The box full of index cards has served its purpose; it’s time to move on to storing information about your CDs and DVDs in a database.

This might seem like more of a pain than you can stand. What’s the point of doing a database when you can just type it all into a spreadsheet, for instance? Well, a spreadsheet is a good start but with a database you get a lot more features, including easily printing custom labels for all those legal backups you’ve made. You could also print out a record of all your movies or music, if you keep notes on them such as summaries, who you’ve loaned them to, and anything else you track.

Putting together a database and creating the forms to print what you want takes more than a couple steps, but it’s not that difficult. Even better, it’s free, since you can use the free software office suite OpenOffice.org to do everything.

You can download and install OpenOffice.org from their website. Once you’ve got the program installed, you’ll complete these steps.

1. Create a database: There are several ways to do this, but I’ll show you the quickest way.
2. Create or download the document you want to print, from a source such as WorldLabel, and connect the document to the database.

Creating a database

If you’re a database god and enjoy spending time deep in a database—well, you can do anything you want. But, if you want the most results for the least trouble, here’s what I recommend: get your data in a spreadsheet, then create a database file that can read the spreadsheet. This is simple and if you don’t need advanced database features, it’s all you need.

This process creates an OpenOffice.org database file that points to your spreadsheet of information. The spreadsheet doesn’t have the power to do mail merges, but the database file pointing to it does. It acts as a middle man saying “The data’s over there, with these fields–go get it”.

Getting data into a spreadsheet

You either have your data in a spreadsheet already, or you can get it into a spreadsheet pretty easily. You’ll want to have it set up to look something like this: field labels across the top, and with each piece of data separate.

The problem of blank [Address2] lines

Some people live in houses; some in apartments. Some work in enormous campuses with mailstops or buildings in the address; others receive their work mail at a post office box.

Everyone knows this, of course. So why is this worth mentioning? Because it affects how you do mail merges when you send mail to these people. You’ll need all the relevant information for their addresses to print out on labels, or in the header of form letters. You want them to look like figure 1.

Figure 1: Data setup

If your data is in .csv files, you can open those files in a spreadsheet.

1) In OpenOffice.org choose File→Open.

2) In the File Type list of the Open window, select Text CSV (click in that list and type T four times), as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2: Selecting the Text CSV file format

3) Select the CSV file and click Open. In the window that appears in figure 3, verify that the settings are correct for the data, then click OK.

Figure 3: Verifying settings

4) Save the file as a spreadsheet, in spreadsheet format, as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4: Saving the imported data in spreadsheet format

Creating the database file that points to the spreadsheet

Now you’re ready to create the database file that reads the information out of your spreadsheet. It’s very simple.

1. Choose File→New→Database.

2. In the first window, select Existing Data Source, and Spreadsheet type, as shown in figure 5. Click Next.

Figure 5: Specifying Spreadsheet as the database type

3. In the next window, point to the full path of the spreadsheet you want to use, as in figure 6. Click Next.

Figure 6: Pointing to your spreadsheet

4. Leave all the checkboxes marked, as in figure 7. You don’t need to edit the database but the first time, at least, it’s good to take a look at what the main database window looks like. Click Finish.

Figure 7: Finishing the database creation

5. Name the database, as shown in figure 8. This name will show up when you do mail merges, and it’s the name and location you’ll look for when you want to do things with the database like create queries or reports. Click Save.