Connecting MySQL with OpenOffice Base

Sunday, 17 February 2008

OpenOffice Base makes it incredibly easy to hook up to a MySQL database. Once this is accomplished you can easily create a front end to browse through your data, edit it, report on it, etc.

Below are a few steps I took to create a functional setup:

• Install OpenOffice
• Have access to a database (for this example I used my wp_posts table from WordPress) from the workstation running OpenOffice
• Download MySQL® Connector/J and install
  1. Within OpenOffice, click “Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Java > Class Path… > Add Archive…”
  2. Select “mysql-connector-java-5.1.5-bin.jar” or current version
  3. Restart OpenOffice (make sure the process is fully “killed”)
• Create a new database within OpenOffice
  1. click “File > New > Database”
  2. click the “Connect to an existing database” radio button
  3. select “MySQL” from the drop down list
  4. click the “Next >>” button
  5. select the “Connect using JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)” radio button
  6. click the “Next >>” button
  7. enter the “Name of the database” into the text field
  8. enter the MySQL “Server URL” into the text field
  9. click the “Test Class” button and wait for “The JDBC driver was loaded successfully” message
  10. click the “Next >>” button
  11. enter “User name” into the text field
  12. check the “Password required” checkbox
  13. click the “Finish” button and save
• Make a form based on wp_posts: