Using Avery template 5366

[RICKTORIA]

OK....I AM VERY NEW TO A MAC...BEEN A PC ALL MY LIFE...I AM LEARNING...SO HERE IS MY PROBLEM AND I AM SURE IT IS SOMETHING SIMPLE THAT I HAVE TO DO.. I FIND MY LABEL I WANT TO USE...5366 I CLICK NEW DOCUMENT....NOW WHAT I WANT TO DO IS CHANGE THE SIZE OF THE FONT FOR THE ENTIRE PAGE (I AM RELABELING OFFICE FILES FOR A NEW COMPANY) IN MY PREVIOUS PC LIFE I WOULD GO TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE AND WHEN THE DOWN ARROW APPEARED I WOULD HIGHLIGHT BOTH COLUMNS, CHANGE MY FONT AND ALSO ALIGN IT.

I CAN'T DO THAT IN THIS APPLICATION AND IT IS SO VERY FRUSTRATING.....I FEEL LIKE I NEED A HAND HOLDER....I HAVE GOOGLED, AND SEARCHED OF ALTERNATIVE WAYS TO DO THIS, BUT I WANT TO BE ABLE TO DO IT FROM THE PROGRAM....


ANY HELP WOULD BE GREAT

[keme]

It is not the Mac's fault, nor yours.

While the label wizard does a good job of guiding the way to simple labels, the resulting document is not very easy to work with. Some tasks (like font change on all content) can be solved by changing settings for the style(s) in use. I suggest you try to change the default paragraph style first. Menu item Format - Styles and formatting...

For other situations I often create my own template with a table, measuring sheet size and margins and calculating label size from that. Set column width and row height, and disable automatic sizing. You may need to set the margins slightly smaller than measured.

[Villeroy]

For other situations I often create my own template with a table, measuring sheet size and margins and calculating label size from that. Set column width and row height, and disable automatic sizing. You may need to set the margins slightly smaller than measured.

So do I. You can download ready made OpenOffice templates from avery.com. Their templates consist of a table with the right cell dimensions and spaces between cells. Design one of the cells to your liking and copy the final result to the other cells. If you changed the table layout by mistake, just open another document from the template and copy over the cell content you have so far.
menu:Edit>Exchange Database... lets you choose the right query or table from your database.
menu:Insert>Fields>Other... tab:Database lets you insert placeholder fields for the database content. The last field in the cell should be a [Next Record] field. Otherwise you get one page with the same content in all cells which may be wanted in some cases (e.g. business cards).

The wizard produces a tiled set of frames rather than table cells but this is just another way to get the same tiled layout. The content of the tiles is the same.

If you can't get any fields from your database:
File>New>Database...
[X] Connect to existing database
Type: Spreadsheet (I assume)
[X] Register the database
Save the database and forget the database. Just don't delete it. It is just a configuration file. All your data are still in the spreadsheet (or whatever type of database you connected to).

[RICKTORIA]

wow......thank you for that information i am going to try it out and see if i can get it to work for me....i didnt think apache would be so hard....

[Villeroy]

Why is it hard? In most cases the label wizard simply works and you have your labels within 2 or 3 minutes. In cases where it does not work, you have to set up the document and the data source manually which may take some 15 minutes. The result is a reusable data source and template.

[keme]

I tried to search the Avery pages, but they do not offer easy access to an ODF template for 5366 folder labels. (Sheet size "Letter")
The Word template offered may work, but most likely it doesn't. (Word and Writer treat spacing a bit differently, so templates which require precise placement are normally not portable between the two wordprocessors.)

The label wizard in Writer makes a good template, but it is rather cumbersome to change formatting if you can't work with styles. Also, it seems to use zero edge spacing, so if given measures (and my calculations) are correct, rounded corners of labels may chop off some of the text. I don't have the actual labels available to check, so it may be OK.

If you need something more flexible, this template looks promising. Table cells are used to add spacing, which clutters the workspace a bit. Also, this makes extension of the table to multiple sheets a bit irksome. Rather, copy the entire table to a new page. (Of course, if you need identical labels you simply print multiple copies of a single page )