How do you do labels? Here are five easy ways to print professional-looking mailing labels - includes related article with product information - tutorial

Home Office Computing, May, 1991 by Philip Bishop

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Bulk Mailer ($125/IBM, $149/Mac). Satori Software, (206) 443-0765. 384K IBM compatible, 512K Macintosh.

LabelPro ($100 each/three versions: PC Laser, PC Dot-Matrix, Macintosh). A very Software, (818) 915-3851. 512K IBM compatible, 1MB Macintosh.

Label Unlimited ($80). Poser Up! Software, (415) 345-5900, (800) 851-2917. 512K IBM compatible.

MacEnvelope Plus ($90). Synex, Inc., (718) 499-6293. IMB Macintosh.

MyAdvancedLabelMaker, ($50). MySoftware Co., (415) 325-9372. 512K Macintosh.

MyLabelMaker ($2073.25 inch, $25/3.5-inch). MySoftware Co., (415) 325-9372. 256K IBM compatible.

PC-File ($150). Button Ware, (206) 454-0479. 512K IBM compatible.

Smart Label Printer/SLP 1000 ($250). Seiko Instruments, (408) 922-5900. IBM compatible, Macintosh. How Do You Do Labels? Whether you are young or old, female or male, Mac or PC user, if you own a business, you do labels. If you don't, you should. Bills, proposals, bids, and other correspondence all require a mailing address, and this usually means producing a mailing label or an addressed envelope.

YOUR OPTIONS

When it comes to making labels, your choices are varied. Among software-based solutions, you can:

1. Print labels directly from a database;

2. Use label-printing software;

3. Create labels with dedicated mail-management software;

4. Print labels from a word processor; or

5. Design labels with a desktop-publishing program and print them from an imported mailing list.

Sure, you could continue to use a type-writer or a ballpoint pen, but both methods are inefficient.

Another label consideration is the type of printer you use. Aside from the improved output quality, laser and ink-jet printers are generally much easier to set up and use for printing labels than dot-matrix printers. Feeding in labels is as simple as filling up the paper cassette, while tractor-fed dot-matrix printers jam more easily. On the other hand, dot-matrix printers are so inexpensive compared with laser and ink-jet printers that one could be used for printing labels and nothing else--especially when you typically print one at a time.

There are, in fact, as many ways to do labels as there are people who do them.

DATABASE LABELS

Judi Wunderlich was recently upt to her knees in labels. She was keying in the names of 3,000 potential clients from the Chicago yellow pages for use in a direct-mail campaign for her business, Wunderlich Graphics. For his job she was using PC-File, a flat-file database program from Buttom Ware.

"Each record in this database lists the company, my contact in the company, when I've sent them a direct-mail advertisement, and which ad I sent," she says. "It shows whether they responded to one of my mailings or whether they found me in the phone book, what kind of operation they have that relates to the graphic arts, what prices I quoted them over the phone, and any other comments I care to make."

If you need to have this much information available on subjects and also need to contact them by mail, you need some kind of database program for your mailing labels. When it comes time to do a mailing, names and addresses can be extracted and printed. Wunderlich notes that Buttom Ware makes the job easy by providing a separate program on the PC-File disk, appropriately called PC-Label; most database software has similar label-printing features.

"With PC-File, I can customize the printing of my labels," Wunderlich says. "For example, I use one [label format] for the laser printer, another for the dot-matrix printer, plus some special clear labels."

SPECIAL LABEL SOFTWARE

Stan Wong, owner of MicroMime, a West Coast software developer, uses the PC laser version of LabellPro. He chose LabellPro because his current labeling needs are specialized: disk labels (including serial numbers), identification labels for products such as MicroMime's integrated circuit chips, and return address labels. As software dedicated for designing and printing labels, LabellPro is ideally suited to this sort of work. (You should use labels dedicated for laser printers too, or you risk damaging the printer.)

"I particularly like the program bacause it lets me import graphics and incorporate them into my labels design," says Wong.

The beauty of LabellPro is that it use templates based on labels available from the label people themselves, A very. Faithful adherence to A very's specs is guaranteed which makes doing labels a simple follow-the-numbers operation.

LabellPro, which also comes in PC dot-matrix and Macintosh versions, provides a palette of tools for designing a label within the framework of the template you have chosen. These template include all the popular Avery styles, and they are displayed full-size on your screen. (See review of Mac version in this month's Software Reviews.)

MAIL-LIST SOFTWARE

Peggy Taylor operates a Macintosh-based word-processing and computer-services business out of her California home.

"I have other label programs but find Bulk Mailer the easiest, fastest, and quickest. I now use it exclusively," she says. "It has the best manual I've ever seen for new-comers to the computer world. It also has great pictures to follow along with the writen explanations."