Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I have the Avery 8371 Business Cards (2"x3.5") from Amazon. I am trying to print color swatch cards using the label writer to write the information for the quilting cotton swatch vertically so I can attach a 2"x2" piece of fabric above the name and ID number. I have been unable to get the text to rotate and than stay in center in the regular portrait mode.


I have found a horizontal version of the template on the Avery website. And I have been trying to get it to print the info one card per row. However it is printing one page per data row. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Is it possible to have vertical Avery pages in the drop menus for the label making wizard that would be so cool?

Hi, and welcome to the forum. Thank you for the attachments, but you didn't attach your 8 millionth try database so I will use fields from the Bibliography database which comes with OpenOffice. <Identifier> will represent the name and <Pages> will represent the ID number below it.

BlueAngel wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 5:31 am I have the Avery 8371 Business Cards (2"x3.5") from Amazon. I am trying to print color swatch cards using the label writer to write the information for the quilting cotton swatch vertically so I can attach a 2"x2" piece of fabric above the name and ID number

File → New → Labels
Labels → Brand:Avery Letter Size → Type:8371 Ink Jet Business Card
Database: Bibliography → Table:biblio
Field:Pages → ⬅︎ → Field:Identifier → ⬅︎ → New Document
Uncheck View → Field Names
In the upper left label place a semicolon between <Pages> and <Identifier>
In the upper left label select <Pages>;<Identifier>
Table → Convert → Text to Table → Separate → Semicolons → OK
Table → Select → Table
Format → Character → Position → Rotation → 270 → OK
Table → Table Properties → Table → Alignment → Left
Columns → ✓ Adapt Table Width → Column Width → 1:1.00 cm → 2:1.00 cm → OK
Synchronize Labels
File → Print → Form letter → Yes → Records → All → OK

Adjust the column width to your liking. This prints ten data rows per page. To print a page with ten identical cards of the first color, then a page with ten identical cards of the second color, etc, simply replicate each data row ten times before printing.

BlueAngel wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 5:31 am Is it possible to have vertical Avery pages in the drop menus for the label making wizard that would be so cool?

File → New → Labels → Format allows you to design a custom label instead of using a predefined one like 8371. After creating the new document you should be able to change the paper orientation to Landscape. Then you can save this as a template so you only need to do the design once. But there's no need to create a custom label because you can use the procedure above with the predefined 8371 label.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit ☐ button and add [Solved] to the start of the Subject field. Select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

Thank you for responding, I am unsure why you changed my title. This is the same information that I found in the other rotating label thread, it does not answer my problem. I am able to get to the same place but the words do not format to than print in the center of card. As like yours they always will print with the info aligned to left of each card.

After a lot of frustration a friend tried to do same actions on their work computers Word program this morning. When they created the template for labels a third <next record> showed up on each label along with my <color name><color id>. That's what I was missing!!! So with those simple two words I could search the forum better and found this thread: https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/v ... 42&t=60849

So now how I have come to understand; the label wizard will create a hidden <next record> command for each label and mail merge for each page or envelope.

Using the copy paste method the previous author used. I created a basic label wizard template and than copied the text and hidden commands from label wizard document into the 10 cards in my template in the regular mail merge screen. Due to the now double prompt at the end of page and last label to skip 2 rows of data, I made every 11th row of my data sheet blank.

I don't know if this makes sense and it might be the long way around, but everything is centered and so pretty now, so I am happy and just wondering if I can control all this new labelling power. I attached the template I made and the example of the first batch of swatches I am making. This forum is so cool, I never imagined I would figure cool stuff like this out. Anyone else organizing their fabric collections are welcome to the template.

BlueAngel wrote: ↑Sun Dec 04, 2022 11:47 pm I am able to get to the same place but the words do not format to than print in the center of card. As like yours they always will print with the info aligned to left of each card.

I had missed the requirement for the text to be centered. Fortunately this is an easy modification to my procedure. Before the Synchronize Labels step I used Table → Table properties → Text flow → Alignment → Vertical → Centered, then was able to create these two pages.

BlueAngel wrote: ↑Sun Dec 04, 2022 11:47 pm I am unsure why you changed my title.

Your original title "Trouble creating a label template" doesn't help anyone else who wants to find topics about printing the label with the text rotated so it's vertical. I'll add "centered" to the topic too, now that I realize this is another important consideration.

BlueAngel wrote: ↑Sun Dec 04, 2022 11:47 pm So now how I have come to understand; the label wizard will create a hidden <next record> command for each label and mail merge for each page or envelope.

Yes, that's why it's nice if you can just use the label wizard, as I have done, instead of creating a table. The table method has the disadvantages that both synchronizing the table cells and generating Next Record fields are more work. These are other posts about the table method. I'll admit that the titles are not ones you would notice when searching for this information. I can find them because I contributed to them.
[Solved] Bug in custom labels section
[Solved] Trouble with labels of uneven sizes
[Solved] Using Mail-merge in tables
[Solved] Creating wire number labels on return address labels

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit ☐ button and add [Solved] to the start of the Subject field. Select the green checkmark icon at the same time.