OpenOffice, JDBC and MySQL

Today I wanted to connect OpenOffice.org 3.0 Base to my local MySQL server for some doodling – basically I want to see if Base is ready for normal use. Getting it hooked up is slightly tricky, because I kept getting a “The JDBC driver could not be loaded.” error.

Right. So just trying to connect to the MySQL server via JDBC by default kept giving me this:

Big fat JDBC Error

This boils down to one of two things:

1. You do not have the driver installed, or
2. The driver is installed but can not be found

Check the driver installation

The file we are looking for: /usr/share/java/mysql.jar

If it is not there then install it:

sudo apt-get install libmysql-java

(You could just install it if you are too lazy to check it.)

Make it find-able

There are some guides to adjusting your CLASSPATH to put /usr/share/java/mysql.jar in your environment, but this does not seem to work for me and OpenOffice.

Fortunately, there is an easy way in OpenOffice. Launch OpenOffice and GUI your way to:
Tools > Options > Java > Class Path > Add Archive

And, then use the file dialog to add: /usr/share/java/mysql.jar:

Here it is added.

You may have to re-start OpenOffice.

Test!

Now, when you test the driver, you should see “The JDBC driver was loaded successfully.”

Success! JDBC driver loaded!

Now to see how it works out!