Mailing Labels in Pages 09

Not as fas as I know. I've tried to find that, but I haven't found a clue. I guess it's not implemented. It's a shame, in otherwise most satisfying release...

-antti-

Pages is designed to merge addresses in documents.
It's not designed to print pages of Labels.

Some workarounds where given in the iWork '08 forum.

The 'search in existing threads' feature is at your disposal 😉

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE mercredi 7 janvier 2009 21:56:27)

If it doesn't fit your needs don't use it. Why is a circle round? Why isn't it square?

Then try Avery DesignPro. It will integrate with Address Book and is completely free. Maybe that is why Apple has chosen not to incorporate that feature.

Try googling "labels mac" sometime and you might be quite surprised.

Adam

Address Book does labels & envelopes, so I guess that Apple doesn't feel the need to duplicate function. There is no reason you can't create your own label layout or use Word templates in Pages.

See... even a better solution for labels.

Thanks Peg.

Adam

I do share the same feelings with Rob. Using Address book isn't even close to what you can accomplish with Word & Excel. And the most important thing is that usually you don't have those addresses in Address Book, they are for temporary uses and best administered using a spreadsheet.

But that Avery Pro thing is new to me, I will check that out. And I do have to admit, that labels is one of those few things, when I still open my Windows Pc and use Office 2007.

From my idisk
<http://idisk.me.com/koenigyvan-Public?view=web>

you may downoad
For_iWork:iWork '09:for Numbers09:firstscript.zip

Expanding it, you will get:
prepare merge_2labels.applescript

It grabs the addresses from a table and store them in a new table accordingly to the number of labels which you want to print in a sheet.
So, you may use this new table as a source for a merge task.
Just build a Pages template grabbing values from this table.

The script is far from perfect but it works.

I will enhance it on several points:

(a) no longer pasting values thru GUIscripting
(b) no longer grab the entire original table but only the selected area if there is one.
(c) maybe I will write a variant grabbing predefined columns allowing us to work from a multipurpose source table.

Stay tuned.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE vendredi 9 janvier 2009 22:11:14)

I found a site that has Avery templates for pages. http://www.iworkcommunity.com/. This might help.

You can also try Mail Factory:
http://www.belightsoft.com/mailfactory/

Great Suggestion, I've had Mail Factory for years and love it. I use it for ALL my envelope and labeling needs. I can't think of any other program that does as good of a job, or is as easy to learn.

As a Microsoft certified trainer for Office I can tell you that there are dozens and dozens of things that Word can do that Pages cannot. There are features in Word just for lawyers; just for doctors; just for researchers... If some group wanted a feature and asked for it, Microsoft obliged because marketing morons just love features.

Word is a bloated feature laden program which, by Microsoft's own admission most people don't know about and don't use. Or, to put it as my first trainer did: "You are about to learn features that 80% of your trainees will never use or miss." This from a Microsoft employee!

So Word can do labels. If that's an important feature for word processors in your mind then buy Word. If you want a good label maker look at another program.

Fine.
But if I bought my first Mac 25 years ago, it's just because I didn't want to try to remember how I did some of the 80 % features nobody uses in Word I had to learn 3 months ago, but am unable to reproduce today.
"Il y a des ordinateurs qui servent ceux qui les usent au lieu d'user ceux qui s'en servent"