Chapter 21
In This Chapter
Creating labels fast, with minimum hassle
Formatting labels for specific situations
The Report Wizard (covered in Chapters 18 and 20) is just the tip of the Access reporting iceberg. If you’re so inclined, you can use Access to generate useful printouts that you probably never thought of as reports — mailing or product labels. So grab your basket (and your little dog, too) because we’re off to see the wizard again, as Access provides friendly and magical helpers to see you through.
So you have 5,000 catalogues, newsletters, or some other mailable items printed and ready to go out to your adoring (or soon-to-be adoring) public. You also have a big Access database full of names and addresses. How can you introduce these two and get them started on what will surely be a wonderful relationship? Although e-blasts have become even more common as ways to mass “mail” your clients and potential customers, there are still marketing and informative items that (a) require printing and (b) have to be put in the actual mail.
With the Access Label Wizard, your sheets of labels and your database will be hooked up in no time flat. With the Label Wizard, you can (almost instantly!) generate labels that work with just about any commercial label product on the market. If your local stationery or office-supply store carries them, Access can print your data on them. All you need to know is what kind of label you have, which data should go on the labels, and who’s going to slap the labels on the mailings after you’ve finished your part of the job.
Before firing up the Label Wizard, decide on the information you’ll need for the labels:
Of course, if your label information can all be found in a single table, make sure that table is open or selected in the All Access Objects panel — and follow these steps to build a label report:
In the database window, click the Ribbon’s Create tab and then make your way over to the Reports section of the tab.
The Create tab’s many tools appear, including the Report and Report Wizard buttons discussed in Chapters 18 and 20.
Click the Report section’s Labels button to start the Label Wizard.
The Label Wizard dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 21-1.
Click the Filter by Manufacturer drop-down list and select your label manufacturer.
Access assumes you have Avery labels; if you do, there’s no need to perform this step — just move on to Step 4.
Scroll through the list of label types and find your label’s product number — and when you locate it, click it to select it.
The three-column list includes Product Number, Dimensions, and Number Across information.
Find the product number on your package of labels in the list. If you don’t see it, check the packaging for an equivalent product number that the manufacturer recommends. If you buy a generic or store brand of labels, often the Avery equivalent is printed right on the packaging; you can look for that number in the list.
Click Next.
The Label Wizard asks you for your font choices, as in Figure 21-2.
Choose the font, size, font weight (to determine whether you want your text to be light or very bold — click the drop list to see your choices for the font you’ve chosen), and the text color you want for your labels; then click Next.
The next page of the Label Wizard appears; here’s where you choose which fields from the active table you want to include in your labels.
Double-click the first field you want to include on the labels.
As shown in Figure 21-3, there are two boxes — Available Fields and Prototype Label. When fields from the left-hand box are double-clicked, they end up in the right-hand box.
Double-click the next field to insert it into your label and place a space or press Enter after the field (to advance to the next line), as in Step 8.
Continue double-clicking fields to add them to the Prototype — being careful to put spaces between fields and to press the Enter key to move to a new line in the Prototype box, as needed. Figure 21-4 shows a completed address label.
Click Next.
Now the dialog box changes to offer choices for sorting your labels.
Select the field by which to sort your labels — such as by last name or by postal code.
As shown in Figure 21-5, you can sort by more than one field; the order in which you add fields to the Sort By box dictates the sort order.
If you plan a bulk mailing with discounted postage, check with your local postal authority for details about how to organize your mail. Post offices often want the mail presorted by zip or postal code; check first because each post office may handle things differently. Rather than drive your friendly postal workers over the edge, bring your mail sorted the way they want it.
Click Next.
The next step in the wizard process appears, as shown in Figure 21-6.
Leave the default option chosen (See the Labels as They Will Look Printed) and click Finish.
The Labels report appears onscreen, as shown in Figure 21-7, and you can print as desired (by using the Print command, as usual). You can also save your work for future reprintings of the same report.