Address Book - Return Address & Mailing Labels

In trying to wean myself away from using Appleworks, decided to give AB a try for labels. Had good success in doing routine labels for lists/groups of recipients, but no luck so far in trying to do return address labels or any other type which features multiple copies (an entire sheet, say) of the same address information.
I looked through Help already and ran several searches in these fora. Is it even possible to do this? I came up with a sort of kludgy approach of just making multiple copies of the same card in a group but wasn't able to do that either.
TIA for any insights.

To update: Seems impossible in normal means to make multiple copies of a single AB entry, meaning you really can't do things like return address labels (among other examples).
I don't see this as a huge indictment of either Address Book or of Pages, and it remains almost ridiculously easy to do in Appleworks and, with a bit more tedium involved, in Word. In fact, I just went ahead and completed the project in AW while continuing to play with Address Book, during which I did stumble into at least one kludge approach which works just fine.
Steps:
1. Drag the selected v-card to the Desktop
2. Copy/Duplicate it enough times to wind up with the number of records that you need, which is often going to be the number of labels per sheet.
3. Create a Group for the labels, then drag all of the cards from Step #2 into it. You'll have to step through the process of using all of the other copies; left to its own devices AB will detect that they're all identical and will only use one of them.
Now print the group, using the print dialogue boxes to set things up for the type cards that you're using.
This is neither faster nor necessarily better than AW or Word, but it does work. It strikes me as something that AB should be able to do easier than this, though, and I've submitted Feedback to Apple about this. Perhaps if others would do the same we'd see this added in, eventually.

Similar Messages

How to Export from Numbers 09 to Address Book or print mailing labels?

I need to know how to export contact information that is part of a Numbers sheet to Address Book and to be able to print mailing labels. I do not have to print from Address Book but do need to produce address labels. I've tried a number of things from the help menus in Numbers 09, Address Book, Word and Excel for MAC 2011. I probably just don't have a grasp fo what I'm supposed to do. Thanks much!

nushuz,
I can sympathize if you're having trouble following the directions. Address Book will reject what looks like a perfectly good CSV file if it doesn't like the data it finds inside.
Here's what I have found to be the best way to create a CSV from Numbers for Address Book import...
Drag an Address Book contact to a Blank Sheet in Numbers. That's a Sheet in which you have deleted the default table.
This will give you a properly formatted table for conversion to CSV, and you just have to add all your contact data to the table you just created. Before you begin though, it's a good idea to Unhide all Hidden Columns, and there are probably many. Hover over any Column Label and click the menu triangle, selecting "Unhide All Columns", or words to that effect.
After you have all your data situated in the table, Share > Export > CSV and then Import to Address Book.
Jerry

Using address book to print mailing labels

Hi all
I am trying to print mailing labels using the addresses in my address book. In the past, I had a PC and was able to put in a title such as "The Smith Family" and it would be simply applied to all labels by exporting only the last name and of course the address. How do I do this using address book?
Thanks so much for your tips.

Here's a way to get somewhat similar behavior. Hopefully you can adjust it to get the best result.
1 - Select a card that you want to print
2 - Choose the Card > Add Field > Related Names menu item. If that menu item is grayed out, you can just press the Edit button
3 - Find the related names fields in the card. They have default labels of "friend" and "assistant". Click on one of the labels and change it to "spouse"
4 - In the field for the spouse label, type "Family" for example
5 - Press Edit to close the editor and save the card, then print
Now the envelope or label will be addressed "Bill Gates and Family".

Holiday Mailing labels

I have a need for a program or way to take addresses from Address Book and print mailing labels that say "The SMITH family" rather than using the full name John Smith. Anyone with an idea or an answer?

Try a 3rd party application such as Roll Call Directory to read your Address Book data and format and print your selected fields onto labels.
AK

Printing Mailing Labels from Address Book

Stupid question, but one that is driving me crazy.
How do you print a sheet of mailing labels from Address Book but when the entire sheet of labels is the SAME label?
I can print labels successfully in address book, can select the label type and number, etc.
However, when I select a single contact, I can't find a way to print up an entire sheet of labels (e.g. 14) of all the same contact - it only prints one label of the single contact.
Please help! I know it must be a simple fix but can't find it anywhere to select as an option.

OK, weird that this morning (one day after you posted this question) I had the same question. I just want to print some return address labels for my own company. While I haven't been able to find a software based way to do it, I did think up a workable (if a bit ridiculous) hack. Copy the address you want to fill the sheet of labels with however many times there are labels on the sheet and select those however many copies and click print! I created 30 copies of my own company's address in Address Book, selected them, and printed a sheet of labels without problem. A bit dumb, but it works!
Hope that helps.

How can I change the fonts in my address book? I'd like to change them to make fun mailing labels.

How can I change fonts in my address book so I can print clever mailing labels?

Hello, I think you'll have to Export them & use another Application...
How to Export Your Mac OS X Mail Address Book Contacts to a CSV File...
Export Your Mac OS X Mail Address Book Contacts to a CSV File
To save your contacts from the Mac OS X Address Book to a CSV (comma-separated values) file, which lets you import the data to many other address books:
Download and install AB2CSV.
Open AB2CSV.
Select Mode | CSV from the menu.To configure which fields will be exported, you can select AB2CSV | Preferences… from the menu and go to the CSV tab.
Now select File | Export from the menu.
Go to your Documents folder.
Click Choose.
The exported address book contacts are saved to a file called "everyone.csv" in your Documents folder.
http://email.about.com/od/macosxmailtips/qt/How-To-Export-Your-Mac-Os-X-Mail-Add ress-Book-Contacts-To-A-Csv-File.htm
Then again, AB can be imported into...
Might look into NeoOffice...
http://www.neooffice.org/
Or Open Office...
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/index.html
And most likely MS Office.

Mail label printing from Address Book

I am trying to print labels for Christmas cards using the label printing feature in Address Book (Tiger version). The cards in my group include First and Last Names as well as the Spouse Name. Sometimes the label prints with the person name and the spouse in the form: John Doe and Jane. Other times the spouse is left off. I would like consistent behavior. At this point it truly seems random. I've tried deleting cards, rebooting and reentering new cards without effect. Can anyone help?
Does anyone know if the problem is resolved in Leopard? If so, I could convert my MacBook and print from it. I can't convert the MacPro yet because some 3rd party software that I rely on is not yet compatible with Leopard.

I encountered the same issue last year around Christmas time. This is what I learned about how Address Book works when printing labels:
If you have a spouse or child listed on contact card it will print them all on the mailing label IF the first name of each person is unique to your entire address book. For example, if the contact is John Brown and the spouse is listed as Susan Brown and the child is listed as Chester Brown, the expectation is that the label would print as:
John, Susan and Chester Brown
This assumes that there are no other contacts in your address book with the first name of Susan or Chester. However, if, for example, you have another person in your contact list named Susan (the last name could be anything), Address Book will print:
John and Chester Brown
This is because Address Book looks at all the first names in your contact list and if it sees a first name that is also listed in one of the spouse or child fields then it looks to see if the the other contact shares the same address as the contact you are trying to print. If the address is the same, then it prints properly on the label. If not, then it doesn't print on the label. So if you have two Susans - Susan Anderson and Susan Brown - Address book looks at the address on each card and determines that Susan Brown has the same address as the contact you are trying to print (John Brown) and therefore prints her name on the label.
So, to make a long story short, if you want consistent and predictable results when printing your labels you should assign a unique card to each person that you want to appear on the label and make sure that the individual cards have the same address listed on each. So, in the above example, there would be a card for John Brown, a card for Susan Brown, and a card for Chester Brown. On John Brown's card, Susan Brown would be listed as spouse and Chester Brown would be listed as child. Print John Brown's card and you should get:
John, Susan and Chester Brown
Although this makes logical sense, it's not incredibly intuitive and not very well documented by Apple. I was hoping they would enhance Address Book in Leopard since this seems like a feature that a lot of people would use around this time of year. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case this time around.
The next issue that you will probably encounter is what I'm dealing with now: I want to send Christmas cards to the home address of some people on my list and to the business address of others. When printing labels, you can choose to print home addresses, business addresses, all addresses (prints two labels, one for home and one for business) and Distribution List. You can choose your preferred/default mailing address for each contact in your group in the Edit Distribution List menu item. I did this and picked the default address that I wanted for each person on my list. The proper address for each contact should print perfectly when I print labels using the "Distribution List" option. Indeed, all my contacts print to the proper address BUT spouse and child names don't print on any of the cards - they only print when you choose All, Home, or Business!
Good luck!

Print Mailing Labels from Address Book

After following the convoluted rules for Address Book, I finally got my Leopard computer to print Mailing Labels with proper relationships displayed. I upgraded to Snow Leopard and now this is all broken again.
I read http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3952 which describes the changes made to Snow Leopard, however for anyone who already put in a lot of work to get labels working correctly for Leopard (or Tiger), this is a major set back.
Not only that, the Snow Leopard method for printing labels breaks so many other uses of Address Book. I will name a few:
iPhone:
I sync my address book with my iPhone. My buddy calls, now instead of "Bob Smith" displayed on my iPhone, I will see "Bob & Jean Smith" even though the call is from Bob's cell phone....all because I followed the new 10.6 rules to get proper labels printed by 'hacking' the first name field and changing "Bob" to "Bob & Jean".
Mail:
When I receive and email from Bob, instead of it saying "Bob Smith <[email protected]>" it will display: "Bob & Jean Smith <[email protected]>"
I'm sure there are other examples of how this change will break other apps.
Solution:
Apple should add a Print option to Address Book with a backwards compatibility checkbox that will include relationships with matching addresses to support 10.4 - 10.5.8 address book printing usage.
If you agree that Apple should add this Print option to add back support for relationship printing, add your voice to this thread, as well as post a bug report to Apple with similar contents.

A vote here for a checkbox in preferences to "include related names," allowing for 10.5 style behavior.

How to print editable mailing labels from Address Book?

I am once again working on Holiday Mailing Labels (450 pple) and needing to export editable mailing labels from a smart group in my Address Book. but I can only print out non-editable pdf labels. Is there a way around this? Editable labels are vital!! Can I export my contacts to a file that can be imported into Microsoft Word Labels Mail Merge?

I have the same problem. After much searching for easy solutions, I just added a user account on my mac, and use the address book/contacts for the end of year mailings. This meant copying, manually, a lot of contacts! At the same time as they were entered the edits were made. I can make edits ongoing within these lists without changing the contacts in my personal user account. There oughta be a better way!!!

Using Address Book for mailing labels

I know how to use the address book for mailing labels, but when I went to print I had children's names appear on the labels. Is there a way to request souces, but not children. In other words can you select specific information to appear on the labels. Or do you have to go into address book and delete the kids names. Any advice would be great.

There are several 3rd-party applications which will print mailing labels from your address book data and give you greater control of what is printed.
Roll Call Directory and Imprint have both been mentioned.
I don't know how they handle linked cards, so if you try either you might let us know.
AK

Can I use my Address Book to create a data base and then merge from it to create mailing labels?

Is it possible to use my Address Book to create a data base and then merge from it to create mailing labels?
Thanks,
CF

I know one way, it is not elegant but it does work.
1. Open Thunderbird. (download here: https://www.mozilla.org/EN/thunderbird/)
2. Click on Address Book.
3. On the left in the new window is a list of your Address books and groups. Select the one you want.
Your addresses will appear to the right.
4. In Thunderbird / Tools select Export, and Save as "Comma Separated".
You can open that list of addresses in Excel or in FileMaker Pro. Mail merge proceeds from there.

Address Book print page of mail labels using 1 address?

I want to print an entire page of mail labels using 1 address and repeating the same address for all labels on the page. Does anyone know how to do this?

Found the answer. Get Mail Factory (BeLight Solutions) ..
Shareware, $39..
It prints any kind of address label, envelope, business card you can think of..
.. even better you don't need to buy microsoft junk

Address Book & Mailing Labels

when i print mailing labels, not only the contact, but their children show up on the label? why??

I have found an answer to the problem!
Click on "edit" at the bottom of the Contact Card, then click on ,say,"spouse". Go down the list of variables to "custom" and write "wife".
For "child",again go to "custom"and enter "Children". When you go to print, either enveloped or labels, the extra names have disappeared!
Happy,Happy, New Year!

Mailing labels with Japanese addresses

Hi folks,
It's that time of the year to send the holiday cards with fancy labels
and I'd been using iDress, but they've dropped off the face of the Earth.
Anyway, trying to use the mailing label designer in the Address Book and all
seems to work well except for Japanese addresses. The person's name is printed
on the bottom - after the address. Anyone know how to get around this?

I'm not entirely clear on what you mean by "their own addresses". Would this be email addresses in other IP domains, and you're finding you can't send email "from" those addresses and from those other domains from your ISP connection?
The reason you may be having difficulties here is because these "custom addresses" here are a regular feature of spam. This whether from a compromised SMTP server, or from malware installed on the server or the client systems.
The ISP may well choose to deny altered return addresses; your "custom addresses". (ISPs tend to deny the spoofing of return email addresses, and may not accept email arriving from ISP clients via port 25, as these and other techniques cut down on the volume of out-bound spam.)
If this is happening, you might have to set up forwarding of the mail messages to the target addresses, to get the message from your server along to the target address. But the message(s) will have your domain or the domain provided to you by the ISP as the return address.
Some of the anti-spam techniques -- SPF, for instance -- will also tend to prevent mail from spoofed sources from being processed.

Using addresses, can you print duplicate mailing labels for the same address

using my address book, can I print duplicate mailing labels for the same name and address.

I checked the Address Book Print Dialog and I did not see the option to duplicate a single label.
The only thing you could try is to select the name in your list. Then do Command-P to print which should get you to this dialog box:
Try changing the # of copies and see if that does what you want. Otherwise I'm not sure and your answer may best be found in the Address Book forum on here.
You may not want to incue the expense but Microsoft Word will do what you want.

Address Book - Return Address & Mailing Labels

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