OpenOffice.org Writer Mail Merge Fields Insert Formula

I use OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice.org to merge from the Calc spreadsheet to the Writer word processor module. I was merging raw scores and wanted to reflect the percentage correct after the raw score. I could have added a column to my grade book that would have calculated the percentage correct, but to do this for every assignment would double the column count of an already expansive spreadsheet.

Fumbling about with the Insert fields dialog box, I could not hit on the right combination. I even tried copying and pasting fields into the Insert formula dialog box, but to no avail. When copied and pasted, the field pastes as the field names only in angle brackets, such as and generates an invalid formula

Rumbling around inside the help files answered many simpler questions, but not how to set up a formula using a Calc spread sheet field name.


Stumbling about the web for an hour was also of no avail. Searches of the pertinent forums that are out there (oooforum, OpenOffice.org community forum, and libreofficeforum) did not yield a solution.

Bumbling back inside Writer I did finally tumble across a solution. Turns out I had to manually type the full field name in filename.tab.field_name format along with the calculation desired.

Thus the calculation for test two was filename.sb1.t2/34. No preceding equals sign is used - one of my many missteps in this process. This was then formatted as a percent using Additional formats...  This is useful because I mail merge my grade book to produce grade reports for each student. Seeing the percentage seems to help the students when the total possible is a number such as thirty-four.