Mac OS X: Print Mailing Labels directly from Address Book
Contributed by qmchenry 
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.
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kaplan said on December 9, 2008
I keep getting the kids names in my mailing labels. How do I just get:
Mr. & Mrs. Steve Smith
(address)
Anonymous said on December 15, 2008
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 said on January 4, 2009
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 said on January 11, 2009
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 said on March 21, 2009
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 said on June 18, 2009
What if I want to print 30 labels of the same address… how do I get that one address to appear on each label?
Nick C said on June 19, 2009
You can’t you have a Mac (like me) and they look easy cos they don’t let you do anything!
Mimi said on June 21, 2009
Did you get an answer? I’m trying to do the same thing…
NormanMcN said on June 29, 2009
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.
Anonymous said on July 11, 2009
I am use the iwinsoft label maker professional to make my label.
Chuck Taylor said on October 14, 2009
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 said on December 17, 2009
Start your sheet upside down the next time for the remaining labels.
AppleJunkie said on December 19, 2009
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 said on December 31, 2009
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 said on December 31, 2009
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.
John said on January 3, 2010
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.
Greg Thompson said on January 25, 2010
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???
Anonymous said on January 26, 2010
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
alley1971 said on March 1, 2010
Use the Avery template under “Design & Print Online”. Works genius when it comes to creating personal address labels, meaning a whole page of the same.
fjpoblam said on April 10, 2010
Thanks for that! I’ve been struggling worthlessly, needlessly with OpenOffice, and was even looking at iWork. What a waste of time! K.I.S.S.! Does exactly what I need. (Shows you what a little binging around will do.)
Nancy said on April 22, 2010
Worked perfectly! I too was struggling and I can’t believe how easy this was! Thank you! I easily set up a distribution list and printed out just what I needed. :-)
Smith said on October 1, 2010
Hi,
I am having a problem printing labels from Address book. I followed your instructions to include company and it worked. However, it is printing two labels for each contact. One with the entire name, company & address and then another label with the same name and company, but with no address. I can’t figure out why it is doing this…can you help??
Thank you!!!!
Gayesf said on November 1, 2010
For Christmas card labels, I want it to say Karen and Pete Nova or Mr. and Mrs. Pete Nova (whichever is easier to set up). My contacts are listed only under my friends’ names, with the spouse entered in its own field. If I just print labels, they come out with only Karen Nova. Do I have to make a second contact for each for use only with Christmas labels using the form I want?
I noted an answer the someone put Xmas in the Notes section and used a Smart group filter to pull those contacts into a label form to print. Would I have to make a second contact for each friend that has the husband’s name in the name field and put ‘Xmas’ in the notes area and use the smart group filter to create the Christmas list labels each time? Then I end up with duplicate contacts for everyone – one I use every day, and the other I use only at Christmas. Help!
Anonymous said on November 17, 2010
…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…
This worked perfectly – Thanks!
JDH30350 said on December 12, 2010
did you ever find a solution to this? we have the same issue!
Rob said on December 14, 2010
I’m trying to figure out a solution to the same issue. Any luck?
Pwest said on December 18, 2010
Me too. I thought switching to a Mac was supposed to simplify my life. Instead I take inordinate amounts of time to find out it just can’t be done like I used to be able to do simply on a PC.
Anonymous said on December 23, 2010
I can’t find a solution to this problem, either. Seems like such a shame, since it is an obvious and useful feature to have. I don’t understand.
Willard202 said on January 6, 2011
For printing to those spare labels left over on a sheet, create a number of “blank” address cards (as many as you need to create blank spaces), with just one character in the address field (in my case I used a “period”, but anything will do so that address book recognizes it as a valid address), then make a new group (Shift-apple-n) which I called “Print Group”. Then add in all those blanks to fill up those spaces and the addresses you want to print. Select print and preview. You’ll soon see how to “trick” it into jogging the labels down the list. Clunky, but it works. Keep the “Print Group” until Apple comes up with a fix.
Cathy said on November 26, 2011
My printer dialog window doesn’t show a drop down for Style. How do I get the dialog window to show this?
Kimberly Winnicki said on December 12, 2011
What was the response to Gaysesf from November 1 of 2010? About printing Christmas labels from the address book? I want mine to read Mr. and Mrs. or the The XYZ Family. How do I set that up to print? do I need multiple listings? with Christmas in the notes?