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Mail Merge Tips from Experience

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About this lesson

Learn tips for label margins and email merges.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Mail Merge Tips from Experience - Solution.docx
13.7 KB
Mail Merge Tips from Experience.docx
58.9 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

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.
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  • 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.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Mail Merge to Emails
04m:16s
Proofing
05m:01s
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