How can I make Address Book print labels how I want, or export to Word?

Question

I have found a number of serious problems with Address Book, which unless I can overcome them mean it is entirely useless for me. Almost all are to do with creating mailing labels or envelopes:
1.I can't find any way of defining a sheet format for labels different from those on the pre-defined list. My labels are in 2 columns of 8, on a sheet 12” long by 8” wide, margins 0.5mm top and bottom, and ½” left and right. The labels themselves are 3½” x1½”. Address Book can't do it. It is odd that this is so restrictive, whereas with envelopes one has total flexibility.
2.Although I can define which address I want to print on each label or envelope, I can't find a way of defining which field should be used for the first (name) line. It always consists of the First and Last names as recorded on each card. This is not what I want. For different mailings, I want to use different first lines, as in many cases each card is the address of a family group, the First and Last names simply recording the names of the parents e.g., John and Mary Smith. But for my Christmas mailing I want to print 'The Smith Family', whereas for my charity mailshots I want to print 'Mrs Mary Smith', as she is the charity supporter, not her husband or children.
3.The address layout seems to be fixed, with each element on a separate line. This is not how I want to print, as in some cases it makes for too many lines, particularly on labels. I want to put the zip/post-code on the same line as the county or state, separated by about ½”. But I can't see how to dictate the layout at all. On labels there is a further problem, in that I can't define a vertical and/or horizontal off-set for the text.
4.The Country does not print at all on labels, making the application quite useless for foreign mailings, and I can't find a way of overcoming this. Over half our mailing addresses are affected by this.
5. And another problem really puts the final cherry on the icing of this cake: There is no way I can find of exporting the data from the address book in a format, e.g. a csv file, that I can bring into a word processor where I could do these mailings how I want them. Not only does the box fail to do what I need, it is also locked.
I don't understand why, having set up Address Book on the database principle that one should have have to record each contact only once no matter how many ways one needs to use the data, it seems it has then been implemented in a way that prevents it being used in one of the most obvious ways, to print addresses in a format of the user's choice.
The Applecare adviser tells me the problems I have can't be overcome. Is that right, or is she, and I missing something? Please help.

Answer 1

noondaywitch wrote:
"It's Christmas card time again and the fact that Address Book is useless for this purpose is really frustrating."
While I sympathise with the functionality of Address Book, I'm old-fashioned enough to write my cards and envelopes by hand (shock! horror!) and get quite p***-off to receive bulk-printed stuff.
Just a thought, peeps.
It'd be all too easy to follow that up with a cheapshot making reference to how many Christmas cards you have to send, but I'll rise above that and explain that some of us might want to use this for business contacts and have 300+ cards to address.
It is a shame that the printing feature from Address Book is so close, yet so far from performing this simple task. It is a shame that Pages can run mail merge, but only for one record per page (which is useless for label printing). It is also a shame that MS Word for Mac does proper labels but doesn't recognise Address Book as a datasource.
These things are all a shame because with Apple's software, you rather expect things to "just work", as per their advertising, and when very simple things don't "just work", it difficult not to feel cheated.