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Formatting the labels and accessing the data source

Open a Publisher document. Click on the File menu and click on Page Setup. Select Labels from the options listed. Highlight the label you want in the Choose a Label box, then click OK. You should see one label on your screen.

Click on the Mail Merge menu, then click on Open Data Source. In the Open Data Source window, choose the Merge information from another type of file option. Find the file you want to use as a data source. Be sure to choose Excel Spreadsheet (*.xls) in the Files of Type field at the bottom of the window if your data is stored in an Excel format, or choose MS Access Database (*.mdb; *.mde) if your database is stored in Access. In the Publisher window, click Yes if the first row of your database contains the field names. If the Choose Sheet or Table window appears, type in the name of your worksheet. (The default worksheet name is Sheet1.)

You should be back at your label, and the Insert Fields window should be visible. Move this window out of the way by clicking and dragging in the blue title region. (If you close the Insert Fields window, you can reopen it by clicking on the Mail Merge menu and clicking on Insert Field.) Use the Publisher tool icons (Text Frame Tool, Picture Frame Tool, etc.) on the left-side of your screen to create your label. To insert information from your database, add a text frame to your label, select the fields you want to insert from the Insert Fields window, then click Insert. Be sure to include spaces, line breaks and punctuation between the fields. You can format the font and add clipart to your labels just as you would in any Publisher document.

Merging the information from the data source

Click on the Mail Merge menu, then click on Merge. In the Preview Data window, click the arrows to view each label. If you need to edit your label, close the Preview Data window, and make the changes. To view the labels with the merged data, click on the Mail Merge menu, then click on Show Merged Results. When you are finished, you can save or print your labels. (Hints: It's a good idea to print the labels on a plain piece of paper, then hold put the paper behind a blank sheet of labels and hold both sheets up to the light to see if everything lines up properly. It's better to manually feed your labels into the printer then to put them in the paper tray.)