How to print labels in Word

A whole sheet of the same label

1. Go to Mailings > Labels.
2. Select Options. Under Label vendors choose the maker — Avery US Letter for most American sheets, Avery A4/A5 for European ones — and under Product number the number printed on the pack, such as 5160. Select OK.
3. Type the address or other text in the Address box. To change the font, select the text, right-click and choose Font or Paragraph.
4. Under Print, choose Full page of the same label.
5. Select Print, or New Document to get the sheet as an editable table you can save and print later.

If your number is not in the list, the table below shows which listed numbers share its layout; otherwise select New Label and type in the sizes from the pack.

One label on a sheet you have already used

In the same Mailings > Labels dialog, choose Single label and set the Row and Column of the first label still on the sheet, counting from the top left. Load the used sheet the same way round as the first time, and print. A sheet with labels missing is more likely to catch in the printer, so feed it on its own rather than on top of a stack.

A different address on every label: mail merge from Excel

1. Check the list first: a header row naming the columns (Name, Street, City, Postcode) and one row per address. A merge copies every mistake in the list onto a label.
2. Go to Mailings > Start Mail Merge > Labels, choose the vendor and product number as above, and select OK. If the outlines of the labels do not show, turn on View Gridlines on the table’s Layout tab.
3. Go to Select Recipients > Use an Existing List and open the Excel file.
4. In the first label, insert an Address Block, or the columns one at a time with Insert Merge Field, and format it the way every label should look.
5. Select Update Labels to copy that label to the rest of the sheet.
6. Select Preview Results and page through, looking at the longest address in particular.
7. Finish with Finish & Merge > Print Documents, or Edit Individual Documents to see every sheet first.

No Word, or a list that is only text? Paste it into the label sheet generator: one address per spreadsheet row or a blank line between addresses, the same sheets as below, and a PDF to print at actual size. Nothing is uploaded. Google Docs has no label feature, so the generator is also the way from Google Sheets.

Which product number?

Several numbers often share one layout: they are the same sheet made for laser or inkjet printers, or sold in another pack, and any of them gives the same table in Word. PrintReadyKit is not affiliated with Avery; the numbers are named so you can match your pack.

Return address labels

The small labels sold for return addresses, Avery 5167 and 8167, are ½ × 1¾ in, eighty to a sheet. Type your address once, choose Full page of the same label, and keep it to three short lines in a 7 or 8 point font. If the lines sit too far apart to fit, select the text, right-click > Paragraph, and set the spacing before and after to 0 pt. For a larger return address, the 30-to-a-sheet 5160 takes the same text at a bigger size.

Test on plain paper first

Print the first page on ordinary paper, lay it on a sheet of labels and hold both up to a window or a lamp. The label edges show through, and what you see tells you which of these you have.

Every label is off by the same amount

The printer takes the sheet in a little high, low or to one side. In the document from New Document, move the whole page: Layout > Margins > Custom Margins, and add the shift to the top or left margin, taking the same off the bottom or right one so the last row stays on the page. If the shift changes from sheet to sheet, the paper guides are loose: push them against the stack.

The first row is right and the error grows down the page

The page is being scaled. In File > Print, the last setting reads 1 Page Per Sheet: open it and set Scale to paper size to No Scaling, and turn off any fit-to-page option in the printer’s own settings. At 97% a Letter page loses about 8 mm over its height, so the bottom row lands on the gap. More on where scaling hides: how to print at actual size.

The left column is right and the right-hand one is off

The paper sizes disagree: a Letter layout on A4 paper, or the reverse. Letter is 5.9 mm wider than A4 and A4 is 17.6 mm taller, so the sheet cannot line up everywhere. Make the label you chose, the paper size in Layout > Size and the paper in the tray the same.

The labels and the gaps are the wrong size from the start

The product number does not match the sheet. Check the number on the pack against the table above, or measure a label and the gap between two with a ruler.

A one-page check of the printer itself is quicker than a guess: the calibration test tells you whether it prints at 100%, and the printer test page how close to each edge it prints. The label sheet generator has a Printer offset for a printer that is always off by the same amount, and can start after the labels already used on a sheet.