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About this lesson
Learn tips for label margins and email merges.
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Exercise files
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Mail Merge Tips from Experience - Solution.docx13.7 KB Mail Merge Tips from Experience.docx
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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
How 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 as shown below.
- Click Ignore on the error message.
- Happily print your labels knowing the text will stay inside the label cut line.
- 00:04 I'd like to show you something that might go
- 00:07 wrong when you're doing an email merge to Labels, and
- 00:10 the problem is with the sheet of labels that come from the manufacturers.
- 00:15 I've been doing mail merges to labels for over 20 years and I've yet
- 00:19 to see this fix happen.
- 00:21 For some reason, the designers of those labels, it's a good thing,
- 00:25 had given it a quarter-inch margin, but for some reason,
- 00:29 Microsoft keeps giving them a 0.19 inch margin.
- 00:33 So let me just show you the effects that will have,
- 00:36 specifically with the Avery 5260, 'cause that is called a Three Up Label.
- 00:40 Three Up means three columns of labels on one sheet, so I'm gonna go ahead and
- 00:44 click OK.
- 00:45 And as you can see I've got the grid out here, well,
- 00:48 let me double click on my ruler to show you my margin settings.
- 00:52 Look at this, Microsoft's default margin is a 0.19, but
- 00:55 I guarantee you if I could hold up the sheet of those labels and
- 00:59 get my ruler out, you'll see that the margin is 0.25, or guess what happens?
- 01:04 I know exactly what happens is, whatever you have typed here,
- 01:08 that abc is going to be cut off, I drew a little shape here to show you.
- 01:14 The quarter inch margin is right here on the ruler,
- 01:18 I've put a line there to show you.
- 01:19 Well when you send that sheet of labels through your printer,
- 01:22 guess what happens to your text, it gets cut off on the cut line of the label.
- 01:26 And so the only thing you can do is change your margin,
- 01:29 you have to change your margin and just make sure.
- 01:32 And what are the chances that your label sheet will go through just slightly
- 01:36 crooked, human error happens, printer errors happen.
- 01:39 So, the quickest way to fix this problem is to on the left hand ruler,
- 01:44 double click to get your page setup, change your margin 2.25, and
- 01:48 hopefully that line won't, let's see.
- 01:52 Oh, the line moved with it, but
- 01:54 let me move that line back to the quarter inch margin yeah, 'cause I just changed it.
- 01:58 So now where that blue line is would be the cut line of the label
- 02:01 that we moved your text over.
- 02:03 Another option of course would be to take this indent button and
- 02:06 move that over because that will push your text over as well.
- 02:10 But remember you've got to do that for every column you've got to do that, right?
- 02:15 I just wanted to give you that little tip because you will be frustrated when this
- 02:19 happens to you, and it's simply a margin adjustment for the labels, thank you.
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