Creating Mailing Labels Using Microsoft Excel and Word:
The quality of the labels will only be as good as the data. Misspellings or some errors may exist in the tax information. Duplicates will occur, so you may want use the advanced functions in Excel to toss out any duplicate names. Company names could be out of order because their names obviously are not Last, First in the database. It is always a good idea to visually inspect and make appropriate changes or corrections if necessary. The tools to create the most accurate labels possible lie in both Excel and Word, CountyMapper provides you with the materials to create your labels. You should familiarize yourself with the editing capabilities for both of these programs. The following instructions are basic and they assume you have some knowledge of both Excel and Word. ***IMPORTANT NOTE: Make a copy of your ORIGINAL TABLE and use the COPY for editing and making labels. This can prevent many headaches just in case you make changes you cannot undo or if you corrupt the table in some way, so BACK UP YOUR TABLE. 1. Open your table that you want to make the mailing labels from in Excel. If your table was created in CountyMapper, then it will be in *.dbf format. Hint: If you do not see your file listed in your folder, be sure that the Files of Type is set to either *.dbf or *.* All Files. Excel can open and use the table as a *.dbf, but it is best to save the table out as an MS Excel Worksheet *.xls. 2. Once your table is open in Excel, you will need to locate the columns necessary for creating mailing labels such as OWNER, ADDRESS, CITY, STATE and ZIP. These columns may have different names like Name_1 or Addr_1 or City, State and Zip may be in one column. The essential information for creating mailing labels is Name, Address, City, State and Zip. Any other columns can and should be deleted to make the table simpler for when you are using the Mail Merge tool in Word. 3. After locating these columns and trimming down your table, you will need to add some empty columns that will contain the broken up Name column into First, Middle and Last. To do this, click on the next column after Owner Name, then go to the Insert menu and select Columns. Add about 5 or 6 columns to your table that the Name will be separated out to. 4. After adding the columns, click on the letter above the Owner column to select the entire column. The column will be highlighted black, so you will know all of the records are selected. 5. Go to Tools—Text to Columns and this will separate the Owner column out into individual columns containing last name, first name, middle name, ect. 6. The Text to Columns wizard will appear: Step1 In most tables, then Name column will be Delimited text. The wizard detects this information for you, so go ahead and click Next. Step2 Most Name columns will have the first and last name separated by either a space or a comma. If it is separated by a space, then the first name and middle name or initial will be in their own column as will an extension to a name such as Jr., III, ect. If a comma separates the first and last name, then Name column will be split into 2 columns, last name and first name/middle initial. Either way will work for creating the mailing labels. When the correct separator is chosen, the columns will be broken out into each column in the wizard. Now click the Next button.
Step This step selects the column data format and is completed by the wizard. Now click the Finish button. The empty columns you created will now be populated with the first, middle, last and any extension that may exist (i.e. Jr., III, ect.). 7. You will now need to name the newly populated columns. Click on the empty cell above where the data begins and type in a name for the column. Above the column containing the last names, change it to “Last,” above the first name column type in “First.” Above the middle name column type in “Middle” and for the further extension type in “Extension.” These are the column names that will be used in the Word Mail Merge wizard to create the labels. 8. Save the changes to your table in Excel, then close the program. 9. Open Microsoft Word and go to Tools—Mail Merge. This will open the Mail Merge wizard and will help you complete the mailing labels.
Step1 Click the Create button and select Mailing Labels. When the pop-up box asking about where to create the document, select “Active Window.”
Step2 Find your data source which is the *.xls file you made the changes to. Click the Get Data button and select Open Data Source. Then navigate to the location of your *.xls file. (Hint: Make sure the Files of Type is set to either MS Excel Worksheets *.xls or All Files *.* so your file will appear in the list.) Select your file and click Open.
A pop up box will ask you for either the Entire Spreadsheet or Database, select Database. It will also pop up to ask to set up the main document. Click the “Set Up Main Document” button.
It will then send you to the Label Options panel. This is where you select the brand/name/item number of the mailing labels you will be using, for example, Avery Standary 5160 Address. Select your mailing labels, then click OK.
The Create Labels window will appear and this is where you design the appearance of your label. Click the “Insert Merge Field” button to choose the columns to create your labels. Select the fields in this order with a space between each field that you use:
Line 1: <
> <> <> Line 2: <> Line 3: <> <> <> Note: If Address_2 exists may be a PO Box, some other address or no address at all. Address_1 is where the tax bill is sent, so it is best to use this column to create the mailing labels.
Once your label is set up the way you want it to appear, click OK.
Step3 Click the “Merge” button and when the Merge Panel appears, click the Merge button. Word will not create the labels. This may take a few minutes if you have a lot of records. When the program is finished and your labels are displayed, save the file. You may now print the labels by going to File-Print. Any tables that you create or edit from the CountyMapper program should be stored in directory not under the c:\program files\usi folder. You should set up a folder on your C drive called c:\myresults or something similar to that so when you install the update releases for your county your tables and mailing labels are not overwritten.