Label Merge with Microsoft Word 2007

A long time ago, I wrote a tutorial on creating custom labels in Microsoft Word. Creating a custom label is necessary only if you don’t plan to use the many inbuilt label templates.

The next step after creating a custom label is the actual label merge process. If you are familiar with Mail Merge, the process is almost similar.

You can start merging labels by going to the Mailings tab followed by Start Mail Merge and selecting Labels from the drop down that appears.

We next select the Label we want. You can select labels from different vendors or select one of the custom ones we created.

Next step in the process is to select the recipients. You can either create a new list, select from an already existing one or select from Outlook contacts.

I recommend using Excel to create your list of recipients. This is a preferred method as you can have a ready database of contacts. I selected an Excel file containing my list.

Here’s where we come to the actual label creation. The Mail Merge system uses Merge Fields for creating the labels. These are basically fields like Name, Address, Salutation etc. This would be usually the headers of various columns of your Excel file.

Under the Mailing tab, select Insert Merge Field then select the various fields that you wish to use.

After you are done with inserting the Merge Fields you want, you can Update Labels.

The last step of the Label Merge process is of course Finishing. You can either Preview Results, Auto Check for Errors and create the individual pages.

Word will create a new document with the merged values and all you need to do now is print this on the label pages.

Was this tutorial easy to understand? What other tutorials would you like to see here on Techtites? Let us know.

About Ajay

A die-hard blogger, web developer, biker, singer, geek, non-stop talker, foodie, movie freak are just some of the words that begin to describe me.

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Creating Custom Labels in Microsoft Word 2007 (Tutorial Thursday)

Last year, as part of our admissions team duties, we were required to send out prospectus to students all over India. These ranged from a minimum of fifty envelopes to over 150 at a time. During a promotion campaign we printed around 90,000 labels!

Given the sheer number of labels to be printed, we decided to automate the same using label merge. In this tutorial, I’ll run you through creating a custom label, and then in a future tutorial teach you how to use it.

Microsoft Word comes inbuilt with tonnes of labels ready for you to use. However, as part of our requirement we needed to create three types of custom labels, viz. MPL12, MPL21 and MPL65. I believe it is a local make. The first has 12 labels on a single sheet, the second has 21 and the third has 65.

The manufacturer specifies all the dimensions needed to be fed into Word, so making the labels is a piece of cake.

To create a custom label, go to the Mailings tab in Microsoft Word 2007 and hit Labels.

In the Envelopes and Labels window that opens hit the Options button.

In the Label Options window that comes up, hit the New Label button.

This is the final step in creating the custom label.

In the label details window enter in the dimensions as specified by your label vendor. The above screenshot shows you the dimensions of MPL12. Word gives you a picture with a description of each of the settings, so you can always measure the label with a ruler and enter in those values. In fact, that is exactly what I did the first time I created the label as a double check.

Hit OK on the windows that follow. Your label will be available in the Label Options window above under Label Vendors > Other/Custom.

As I mentioned earlier, in a future tutorial, I’ll go through using this custom label in label merging.

About Ajay

A die-hard blogger, web developer, biker, singer, geek, non-stop talker, foodie, movie freak are just some of the words that begin to describe me.

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