Topic: Working with labels

[BillB]

From a member:

When printing labels, I keep wasting a page of labels because I have no brain and word defaults to “full page of same label”!!  Is there a way to change the default to “single label”

[BillB]

I have not found any way to change the default for the label tool. This is most likely controlled by a registry setting (if it's even configurable) and maybe someone will post it for us. Microsoft has a bad habit of creating useful aplets and not giving us any way to change how they function. Then we're locked in to narrowly using what could be a very powerful tool.

My suggestion is to get in the habit of never printing from the label tool, but choosing "New Document". This will put the label on a page for you to preview or format before printing. Similarly, I scold anyone who clicks the print button in Excel and running 600 (hopefully blank) pages through the printer because they didn't preview their page.

[BillB]

If you are just printing random single labels, I encourage you to get the free Avery printing program at http://avery.com/us/Main?action=software.AverySoftwareDetail&catalogcode=WEB01&softwarecode=3200. It's easy to use, allows master and variable content, and overall much more versatile than making labels in Word.

[BillB]

Another feature that is not customizable is Insert > Picture > From scanner. 95% of the items I want to scan directly into a Word document are things I'm really using it as a copy machine. I want to scan them as BW line art, possibly cropped. That's a couple more menus down.

If I'm scanning something of any quality, of course I won't be putting it in Word -- at least not without pre-manipulating it.