Label Planet
Our top tip for creating Christmas address labels is to use Word's Mail Merge tool.
With only a month and a bit to go until Christmas, plenty of people will be turning their thoughts towards creating seasonal address labels to add a festive touch to their mail, from individuals who want to make Christmas labels for sending cards and gifts to family and friends to businesses who want the perfect finishing touch for their Christmas correspondence and seasonal packaging.
Address labels are a really easy way to add a festive flavour to anything that you need to send in the post at this time of year and the easiest way to print Christmas address labels (especially if you have a LOT of people on your “nice” list) is to use Word’s “Mail Merge” tool; this allows you to combine a single document (your label template) with a data source (e.g. a spreadsheet of addresses) to create a personalised address label for every person on your list.
The quickest (and easiest) way to complete a mail merge is to use the Mail Merge Wizard, which guides you through the six steps of a mail merge (and lets you go back and forth if you need to correct a mistake).
Watch a video: this advice is also available in video format.
View our step by step How To video to learn how to use mail merge to make labels.
Label Planet’s Quickfire Guide To Using The Mail Merge Wizard
- Find a compatible template code OR download a label template OR note the measurements for your label size.
The Wizard works best if you use a built-in template. If your labels DON’T have a compatible template code, download and save a Word template from the template information page OR make a note of the measurements for your label size to create your own label template.
- Start the Mail Merge Wizard!
Open Word and create a blank document. Click on the “Mailings” tab at the top of the page, select “Start Mail Merge”, and click on “Step-By-Step-Mail-Merge-Wizard”.
- SELECT DOCUMENT TYPE – tell Word that you want to create a set of address labels.
In the Mail Merge panel on the right-hand side, click on “Labels” and then “Next”.
- SELECT STARTING DOCUMENT – select the label template you want to use for your address labels.
If you are using a built-in template: click on “Change document layout” and “Label options”; select the correct label vendor (e.g. A4/A5), locate your code in the list, and select OK.
If you are making your own label template: in the “Label options” box, click on “New Label”, and enter the measurements for your label size.
If you are using a Label Planet template: click on “Start from existing document” and then “Open” to locate your saved label template. Delete the “LP…” text to start with a blank label template.
- SELECT RECIPIENTS – select the data source you want to use to personalise your address labels.
You can enter your list manually at this point but it’s much easier to use a list that you’ve already saved. Click on “Use an existing list” and then “Browse” to locate your list; this can be an Excel spreadsheet, an Access database, an Office address list, your Outlook contact list, a Word data file, or a text file – most people use an Excel spreadsheet so we’ll talk you through the process using this type of data source.
You will now be presented with two boxes; the first asks you to select the sheet in your spreadsheet that contains your addresses and to indicate if the top row contains column headings (e.g. Name, Address Line 1, Postcode etc). The second box asks you to indicate which addresses in your spreadsheet you want to use; by default, they are all selected but you can filter out a specific group, remove individual addresses, or check for duplicate addresses.
If you are using a built-in template or a label template you have made, a placeholder («Next Record») will appear in all of the labels in your label template except for the first one.
If you downloaded a template you will need to enter this rule manually; click on the “Rules” button in the “Mailings” tab and select “Next Record” from the dropdown list. You can repeat this process for each label OR you can copy this first rule and paste it into the remaining labels (ideal if you have a LOT of labels on each sheet). It’s best to do this during the next step so that you don’t accidentally delete these rules while you add your design.
- ARRANGE YOUR LABELS – add your seasonal design to your address labels!
To create a set of address labels with the SAME design, add your design to the top left label and use the “Update All Labels” button to copy it into the rest of your labels.
NB: this option is NOT available if you are using a label template downloaded from an external source – you will need to use copy and paste to fill in your label template as usual.
When creating address labels, you can use the “Address Block” tool to create a single placeholder for your addresses OR you can add individual placeholders for each of the fields in your database (a “field” is one of the columns in your spreadsheet – e.g. the “Name” field is the column that contains the name of each recipient):
ADDRESS BLOCK: click on the “Address block” button and choose the format you want to use. If information from a particular column DOESN’T appear in the preview window you can use the “Match Field” button to tell Word to use that particular column for a specific section of each address.
For example, Word refers to the first line of an address as “Address 1”; if your spreadsheet uses a different column heading, Word may not connect your column with that part of the address block – i.e. it won’t know where to get that bit of information from and so will leave it out of each address.
INDIVIDUAL PLACEHOLDERS: click on the “More items” option to add a placeholder for a particular field (column).
NB: the Next Record rule MUST come BEFORE the first placeholder in each label; this rule tells Word to move onto the next row in your spreadsheet and if it is in the wrong place you will end up with duplicate address labels or mismatched information. It is also important to note that you cannot put rules into a text box, which means that you cannot put placeholders into a text box either – they must be in the main body of the label template to allow Word to execute the Next Record rule when it completes your finished mail merge.
- PREVIEW YOUR LABELS – take a peek at what your address labels will look like after you complete the mail merge.
The preview completes the mail merge for the first page of your address labels, giving you the chance to check that your addresses fit neatly into your label design (and to go back and make adjustments if they don’t). We STRONGLY recommend using the “Preview another label” and/or “Find a recipient” options to check through a selection of your addresses – especially if you know that one address is particularly long (and so might not fit even though the other, shorter, addresses do fit).
- COMPLETE THE MERGE – merge your label template and your data source together.
This brings together your Christmas label template and your list of addresses to create one personalised address label for each of the recipients on your list. You can now choose to make minor adjustments to individual labels (using the “Edit individual labels” tool), to save your merged label template, or to print your address labels…
- Test Print Your Merged Label Template
While you might be tempted to print all of your Christmas address labels at once, we recommend doing a TEST PRINT first; click on “Print” and then select the “From…To” option (enter a range that is smaller than the number of labels on your label sheets) OR set the “Page range” option to “Pages: 1”. This will allow you to check that your label template aligns correctly with your label sheets BEFORE you print all of your address labels at once.
- Print Your Address Labels
Once you are happy that your label template will produce the correct alignment, you can print your finished set of address labels. As a final tip, we would recommend keeping an eye on your labels as they print out – just in case there are any “surprises” in some of the later addresses in your spreadsheet!
Things To Remember:
When you save your merged label template, it remains linked to your list of addresses so you need to keep both files safe. If you lose, move, or rename your list of addresses, you can relink the two (or link your template to a new list) by clicking on Mailings and choosing "Select Recipients". If you update your list of addresses, the details will be updated the next time you open your label template. When you need to print labels from a saved template that you have already merged with a list of addresses, remember to click on Mailings and select "Finish & Merge". If you use File > Print, the template will only print the one page of addresses shown on your screen.
Visit Our Address Labels Section To View All Of Our Address Label Sizes & Materials
We have various label sizes in our address labels range so you should be able to find one that’s a perfect fit for your envelopes and/or packages; whether you’re looking for large shipping labels for Christmas goods (LP4/99 and LP8/99), medium address labels for standard envelopes (LP14/99 and LP21/63), or small return address labels for adding company details or a short seasonal message of good cheer!