Question

Using open office calc, I have 2 csv docs of subscribers. Both with columns:

A) email address
B) first name
C) last name

Doc 1 is a list of 6800 email addresses (column A) with 3/4 of the rows having first name (column B) and last name (column C).

Doc 2 is a list of 6100 of the same email addresses in column (A).

I want to add the first and last names from doc 1 to the appropriate cells on doc 2 using the email address as the id.

Any tips?

Answer 1

You could try to use the VLOOKUP function to search the first and last names for each entry, but i don’t think that this would be a good solution. Instead, i would recommend to use the database features of OpenOffice:

1. create a OpenOffice.org Base database,
2. import both CSV files into separate tables and
3. create a query to select all the mail adresses from table 2, joining the name fields from table 1 based on the email address.

Step 3 requires some SQL knowledge, but it’s possible to build such a INNER JOIN Query using the design view, too (without knowing much SQL). You will need to do the following (in ooo.base, after importing both csv files):

1. create a new query in design view (using Menu Insert -> Query (Design View)..., or using the Create Query in Design View... Task);
2. add both tables to the query; the resulting designer window should look as follows:
   

3. define the relationship: drag the mail column from table 2 to table 1 (opposite direction should work, too); display of result in query designer:

   

4. in the Fields table (lower half of the design view), click into the Field cell in the first column, select e-mail field from table 2 (csv 2);
   

5. in the second and third column, select first and last name columns from table 1 (csv 1). The resulting fields table should look as follows:
   

Running this query should give you a table of all the mail addresses from csv 2 with corresponding names from csv 1.