Mac OS X: Print Mailing Labels directly from Address Book

Contributor Icon Contributed by qmchenry Date Icon December 20, 2006  
Tag Icon Tagged: Apple Mac

Mac OS X comes with a simple but very usable address book application. Before taking a box for shipping, I thought to print out the destination address from my address book rather than scribbling it down. The options for printing information from Address Book are varied — mailing labels (including to Dymo label printers), envelopes, full page or small pocket lists. This tech-recipe describes printing mailing labels directly from Address Book.


From the Address Book screen, select the addresses you wish to print (command-clicking to select multiple addresses).

Click File -> Print… and you’ll see a print dialog window. The right side of this window contains configuration options as shown here:

The Style pulldown menu allows selecting Mailing Labels, Envelopes, and so on. Many sheets of labels are described by an Avery number on the box or carton which can be used in Address Book to indicate the layout of the mailing labels you have. If you know the Avery number, select Avery Standard in the Page option (as shown) and the Avery number in the pulldown to the right (the example above shows Avery number 5161).

The left side of the print window shows a preview of the labels:

If your labels do not have an Avery number, don’t despair (much). You can make a custom layout. While this seems deterministic, in my experience it will take a little trial and error to get the layout just right.

In the Page: pulldown, select Define Custom… which will open a small dialog box asking you to name the new layout. Enter an appropriate name and click OK. The margins set the unusable space between an edge of the sheet and the nearest label. In the Labels section, you define how many rows and columns of labels there are on a sheet. The Gutters section defines the unused space between labels, either horizontally (between columns) or vertically (up and down between labels).

If you are uncertain about the layout or other settings (and definitely if you have defined your own custom layout), try printing to a normal sheet of paper first and hold that page up against a bright light together with a real sheet of labels to check the alignment.

Once you have everything set the way you want, click Print.

Previous recipe | Next recipe |
 
  • kaplan
    I keep getting the kids names in my mailing labels. How do I just get:
    Mr. & Mrs. Steve Smith
    (address)
  • Nick C
    You can't you have a Mac (like me) and they look easy cos they don't let you do anything!
  • dogood
    Have you figured out a way to print labels in Address Book that include, Name, COMPANY, and address? I have spoken with Apple and they said there is freeware or something out there that will enable me to print labels that include the COMPANY name.
  • Alan Joslin
    How does one get the company names to print on mailing lables, below the person's name? I can only get the name and address to print, not the company. This is a real problem.

    Please help.
  • stacyq
    A workaround to add the Company name: Add the Company name to the 1st line of the address field, hit the return key, then enter the 1st line of the street address. Fill out the rest of the fields normally. HTH.
  • GuidoMac
    I couldn't get the formatting the way I needed it, and couldn't remember what I used on my old mac for labels(which wasn't much better). I saw a youtube vid on this topic, and went with an obvious suggestion...Avery.com...They have a simple FREE downloadable software that powerfully does everything I wanted and more, including logos, images(included), different fonts per label(but you need one text field per font/logo style[think of "move forward" "move to back" menu]). Total control!
  • C. Wheeler
    What if I want to print 30 labels of the same address... how do I get that one address to appear on each label?
  • Mimi
    Did you get an answer? I'm trying to do the same thing...
  • NormanMcN
    I did it by taking the one address and copying it 29 times (to use on a 30 label sheet) and then selecting those 30 entries. Of course, one then has to delete the 29 unwanted copies of the address, but that is no big deal to me.
  • Instead of duplicating an entry 30 times, create a Group and copy/paste the card there 30 times. Now use that Group when printing the label.
  • iwinsoft
    I am use the iwinsoft label maker professional to make my label.
  • Chuck Taylor
    Like you show here in the demo if you printed this sheet how would you the rest of the labels? When you go to print the next time it always starts in the top left side. There is six labels left on your demo sheet.
  • heismylight
    Start your sheet upside down the next time for the remaining labels.
  • AppleJunkie
    Works exactly as advertised! I used to key my addresses into Excel, then import them into Word via mail merge to print my annual Christmas labels. This is much easier. I simply tagged all of my contacts by entering the keyword "Xmas" in the Notes field, then created a Smart Group filtering on Notes containing "Xmas". Much easier that the Excel/Word approach. Thanks for this info!
  • ShB
    A few common Mac Address Book issues with easy solutions:

    (1) Printing labels with name AND company: You can do this directly from the default address book software of your Mac, but you have to select the options and set the fields in a very particular order or it won't work.
    File-->Print
    Then set the following fields:
    Label: Addresses
    Label: Print in
    Layout: Page (including the format number, e.g. Avery Standard 5160)
    Then you click CANCEL (it will save the settings)
    File-->Print
    Then set the following fields only:
    Label: Print: Company (Check)
    Label: Print: Country (Check) -- country specification is optional
    Then click PRINT

    (2) Another problem I see people describing is that they are unable to easily import address from one contact into another. Solution is to click on a contact from the same company, then go to the Edit menu and click copy then Paste. Then you will have two identical entries, just go into one of them and modify the name and phone number and any other contact specific info.

    (3) Printing identical labels: Avery has free templates you can download. They take no time at all to use, and they will repeat the addresses on the whole page. Much easier than copying your contacts 30 times then deleting them.

    (4) What to do with the remaining labels after you print half the sheet: One solution is to insert the label paper in the other way around, as long as the number of labels you are printing is less than the number of labels left. Another option is to use up the remaining labels using the free Avery template, and just putting your sender address on them (we can never have enough of those!).

    Hope these tips help!
  • ShB
    PS. In order for the above to work (especially with respect to printing company and name), you may need to download the free Avery template. I understand there is some communication that goes on between Avery download and your address book.

    Also, you may need to have the Mac updates if any.
  • I can not BELIEVE they didn't program Address Book to do a simple thing like print a whole sheet of 30 labels of the same person's name and address.

    Ok, so I read the rest of the comments and am right now downloading Avery's Design Pro for Mac... but what are these templates you're talking about? I looked at the template section on Avery.com and they're all for Microsoft Word, Photoshop, etc ... says nothing about using them with the Address Book database or anything Mac related... so how do we do this???
  • russellbartels
    Dear Help,
    Typically, I want to print one or two labels on a sheet of 10 or fewer blank labels. How do I direct the printer to print the selected address to blank label six on the sheet. Note: this is easy with PalmDesktop. tks, Russ
blog comments powered by Disqus