[muglo] mailing labels
- From: Doug Bale <dougbale@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: muglo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:05:43 -0800 (PST)
I suspect Audrey's question may have had to do with what MATERIAL she could
print her labels on.
If you're wanting to print stick-on labels, Audrey, the company that
practically owns that market is Avery. They make sheets of peel-and-stick
labels in almost any size and shape, that you can run through your printer.
These work really well, and Avery supplies templates for all of them, so that
you can see exactly where to place the information for each label.
The only problem is that Avery doesn't supply the templates in Macintosh
format, or at least used not to. They may have added that since the days when I
made up my own, but since I did make my own, I haven't bothered to check in
years.
It's easy enough to do these yourself in any Macintosh word processing
program that lets you set tabs and adjust leading (interline spacing). Even
TextEdit will work fine. Of course it's still easier in a page-layout program
such as Quark or InDesign, but those certainly aren't necessary.
You just have to waste a couple of pages in trial and error while setting up
your template for a sheet of the particular labels you want to use.
If, say, you want to use templates that provide three labels across and five
labels vertically on a letter-size sheet, just type up the information you want
to use, in a rough approximation of where you think it should go on the first
row of labels, then duplicate it four more times beneath that.
For example, if your labels are to say "Peter Whatsisname, 777 Bunkum Place,
Bladderwort, ON Z4Z 6Y6," start as far down the page as you think you'll need,
and type "Peter Whatsisname" three times, using tabs to set a roughly
appropriate amount of horizontal space between each iteration. On the next
line, type "777 Bunkum Place" three times, using the same tab setting, then
"Bladderwort, ON Z4Z 6Y6" the same number of times with the same tab setting.
Then copy all three lines together and paste them below that, four more times.
You'll be able to see on the screen how close you are to filling the
available space on the page. Use leading commands to increase vertical space
between each group of three lines; just adding blank lines is clumsy and makes
it harder to be accurate. If you do use TextEdit, which is the simplest choice,
set your cursor on the first "Bladderwort" line, go to the Edit menu and select
Text>Spacing and type, say, 9.0 in the last category, "Space after." That'll
give you three-quarters of an inch between the last line of your first set of
labels and the first line of the next lot.
Do the same on the last line of the other four sets, and eyeball the result
to see how close that seems to come to approximating the layout of a full sheet
of labels. Adjust the amount of "Space after" as required. Save the result and
use it to print off one sheet of labels.
The spacing's bound to be less than perfect, both horizontally and
vertically, but the sample will give you a good basis for adjusting both your
tabs and your leading. Do that, try again, and you'll probably be pretty close
to right. If the second attempt isn't exact, the third one almost certainly
will be.
You can buy the sheets at Staples, Oxford Books or numerous other places.
There are competing products, but no one else has the variety of formats to
match Avery's.
Hope this helps.
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