The Enigma of Avery Label Templates

November 14, 2019 8:45 AM

I've never, in 25 years of Mac computing, made an Avery label template work as-is. Not the design-online thing, I'm just downloading Pages templates and filling in. Most common: a font size small enough to fit the template prints out insanely small. Any general guidelines/strategies?

If you don't share this problem, cool, but this thread isn't for you. If you've had similar problems and solved them, please chime in.

posted by Quisp Lover to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

I have had the best success by using Avery's online tool and then downloading the finished page as a PDF. Then I print locally from that. Are you using some series of non-standard fonts?
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:51 AM on November 14, 2019

I've been resisting, but ok. Helvetica's pretty standard.
posted by Quisp Lover at 8:54 AM on November 14, 2019

Do you use Word? If yes, you can access Avery templates from inside Word, and those have always worked for me. (Yes I am on a Mac.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:24 AM on November 14, 2019

Forgive if it isn't the kind of solution you're looking for, but I use a selectric instead of a computer for labels because it's so much less frustrating and finicky.
posted by fritley at 10:07 AM on November 14, 2019

Avery label templates seem to be developed in Word on Windows, and then ported to other platforms with a varying degree of success.

The built-in templates that come with LibreOffice seem especially accurate. You might have to hunt around for the right Avery label template alias, but I've found all the ones I've looked at are spot on.
posted by scruss at 10:27 AM on November 14, 2019

I've had the same problem with their templates in Pages - will try JoeZydeco's fix but would love to see a fix that works locally. Has anyone tried Avery templates with Affinity Designer?
posted by leslies at 10:54 AM on November 14, 2019

I’ve had the same problem, so now I’m going to try scruss’s solution of using LibreOffice. Thanks, scruss.

I’m glad you posted this. I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time using trial-and-error to get most of a page of return address labels to work!
posted by chromium at 11:05 AM on November 14, 2019

When you print, open the print dialog fully (downward arrow icon) and check your Scale: settings. It usually defaults to "Scale to fit". In my experience, this causes problems. Try 100% instead. This should fix any overall layout problems of labels not lining up.

Sometimes on mac it's easier to Print to PDF (open in Preview.app) and then use the print settings there instead.

Your specific "font too small" problem sounds different, though.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 11:13 AM on November 14, 2019

scruss - every few years I notice LibreOffice on my system, and wonder what the hell it's doing there. Yup. This is why it's here. Can you please set a timer for five years from now so you remember to tell me this when I forget and post here again?

I may have solved every problem and answered every question, but, alas, I can't remember it all. And, irony of ironies, I posted a question here once about how to note/remember solutions for future use...BUT I CAN'T FIND IT (I didn't love any of the answers, though).
posted by Quisp Lover at 11:23 AM on November 14, 2019

soylent, FWIW I found this helpful note from Avery:

Select the correct paper size
Be sure "Scale" is set to Custom and 100%
With laser printers, don't forget to change Paper or Media Type to Labels or Cardstock
posted by Quisp Lover at 11:26 AM on November 14, 2019

I work at Avery Products and would echo the suggestion to check the scale, paper type and size when printing. We have an amazing Customer Care Team that can walk you through your project to make sure it turns out the way you envision. I would recommend contacting them at 1- 800-GO-AVERY if you do have further questions or issues.
posted by StefanieAvery at 9:45 AM on November 15, 2019

Stefanie, if your Mac support were savvy and capable, me and innumerable others wouldn't have spent the past 20 years struggling with this task. Your stuff would "just work" for Mac as it does for Windows, or at least your included directions would make it work. Avery has demonstrated by its utter failure that it can't help me do this, so, no, I won't be calling in. I don't believe your telephone reps have secret techniques not shared with the wider world.

Printing from Preview (for PDF templates) or Pages templates just doesn't work, regardless of scale and paper size settings. With tweaks, you can get it close, but it's never quite right. What does work is LibreOffice working on Word-format templates.
posted by Quisp Lover at 7:59 AM on November 19, 2019