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About this lesson
Learn tips for label margins and ensure your labels print perfectly.
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s exercise file.
Mail Merge to Labels, Tips from Experience - Exercise.docx14 KB
Quick reference
Mail Merge Tips from Experience
Label margins and Email merges have pesky issues that are easily solved with just a few clicks.
When to use
If you use labels, you need to know how and why to fix the margins.
If you use Email merges often, there is a more efficient process that will save time and frustration.
Instructions
To fix the margins on a label document:
- Double-Click the left ruler
(or go to Page Layout ribbon, Margins, Custom Margins) - Adjust the margin from .19 to .25
- Click IGNORE on the error message
- Happily print your labels knowing the text will stay inside the label cut line.
- 00:04 I wanted to include this tip for you when you're doing mail merges to labels,
- 00:09 because the margins are really narrow.
- 00:12 And you're going to risk actually having your printer print on the cut line of this
- 00:16 first label, unless you know that you've got to get in there and
- 00:20 change your margins.
- 00:21 Now the example here is that it's just regular 5260 Avery.
- 00:28 And so I can double click on the margin itself and
- 00:31 by default that particular label shows it as 0.19 margin.
- 00:36 So whenever you print your labels, print to a blank piece of paper first.
- 00:41 Label sheets are expensive, so print to a blank piece of paper,
- 00:45 check out how close it is, hold it up to your regular label, hold it up to a light,
- 00:50 and check how close the print is to that cut edge of the label.
- 00:55 Generally what I do is I always change my left margin to a 0.25.
- 00:59 By default, always change it.
- 01:01 I don't care about the right margin, it's the left one that's a problem.
- 01:04 And then plus if you feed your labels and they accidentally go in a little crooked,
- 01:09 this will take care of that as well.
- 01:11 Now when I click OK,
- 01:12 you're going to see a slight adjustment happen over here on the top left.
- 01:17 So I'll click OK and let's watch that.
- 01:20 And see it's slightly adjusted.
- 01:23 Another way to do that same thing is,
- 01:25 this particular sheet of labels has three columns.
- 01:29 The technical term for that is a three up label sheet, three up is three columns.
- 01:34 So I can just click into any one of these columns, flip my mouse on that top ruler,
- 01:38 you see that little tiny gray patch?
- 01:40 That's my edge settings, so I can click and move that over a little bit.
- 01:44 But notice they're all moving with it, so be aware when you move one of them,
- 01:49 they all will adjust accordingly and you'll be fine.
- 01:52 You don't have to adjust any of the other two columns of labels.
- 01:55 Just wanted to mention this to you, because it's really important that when
- 02:00 you're printing labels, don't waste any by accident.
- 02:04 Print a blank sheet of paper,
- 02:07 hold it up to the light with a label in the back,
- 02:12 and then set your margins accordingly.
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