Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word

Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word P 730 / 1 Stop Addressing Envelopes by Hand Let Word Print Them for You! One of the most common uses of Microsoft Word is for writing letters. With very little effort you can write and print a superb-looking letter, but when it comes to the envelope, many of us take the easy way out addressing it by hand! Why? Microsoft Word is just as adept at printing envelopes, and in this article I ll show you how to produce an envelope that matches the professional quality of the letter inside. By Sheila Reeves What You Need to Know Before Printing Envelopes... How To Create and Print an Envelope in Word... Save Your Envelope Document for Easy Use in the Future... How To Use Your Envelope Document to Print Envelopes Quickly... This article shows you how to: Microsoft Word P 730 / 3 P 730 / 4 P 730 / 13 P 730 / 14... Set up and print an envelope in Microsoft Word... Save a special ready-to-use envelope document... Use your saved document for quick envelope printing 37

P 730 / 2 Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word Many of us avoid printing envelopes With a little planning, it becomes easy Discover the Easy Way to Print Envelopes in Microsoft Word There s no doubt that a printed envelope looks a good deal more professional than a hand-written one (however neat your handwriting), so why do so many of us chicken out and pick up a pen? Perhaps it s because we can never remember quite how to do it, or because there seems to be rather a lot of work involved. Perhaps you ve experimented with envelope printing, got into a pickle with it and vowed never to try it again! Printing envelopes certainly isn t quite as straightforward as printing the letters themselves. With an envelope you have to ensure the address isn t printed on the back over the flap, or upside down, and there are no such worries with a letter and a blank sheet of A4 paper. Assuming you overcome these hurdles, you may still find that the address isn t centred on the envelope the way you d like it. In this article, I ll explain how to use Microsoft Word to set up and print an envelope, but we ll go a stage further than that: once you re happy with the finished result, I ll show you how to save it for future use. Although this isn t what Microsoft expects you to do, I ve found it to be by far the easiest way to print envelopes, and along the way I ll share with you an extra little trick I use to help me remember how the envelopes should feed into the printer. 38

Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word P 730 / 3 What You Need to Know Before Printing Envelopes Before we start, there are a few things you ll need to know, or check: Which types of envelope your printer can use. You may have to consult your printer s manual for this: it will list the various sizes of paper, card, photos and envelopes it can print on to. However, for letter writing you probably use the standard DL envelope (which is roughly one-third of A4 size, taking a sheet of A4 folded twice), and any printer should happily print on DL envelopes. How envelopes feed into your printer. You need to know which way up the envelopes have to be placed into the printer s paper tray, and which edge goes in first. Again your printer s manual should provide the answers, but if you have to resort to experimentation, it shouldn t cost you more than two wasted envelopes. Which version of Microsoft Word you use. There are some differences in the way you find and use the envelope options, depending on which version of Word you have, so it helps to know your Word version before following the steps on the following pages. Here s how to find out: 1. Start Microsoft Word in the usual way. 2. If you see the circular Office button in the top left corner of the window (pictured in the following screenshot), you re using Word 2007 and you don t need to follow the remaining steps. Check your envelope size Check your version of Microsoft Word The Office button indicates you have Word 2007 39

P 730 / 4 Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word 3. Open the Help menu and click About Microsoft Word. 4. In the dialog that appears, the very first line of text tells you which version of Word you re using, as shown in the next screenshot. Choose Mailings How To Create and Print an Envelope in Word You usually want to print an envelope after you ve typed and printed a letter, in which case Microsoft Word is probably open in front of you already, displaying the letter you ve written. If so, you can continue from this point, but make sure you ve saved your letter if you wanted to keep a copy as a file. If Microsoft Word isn t currently running, now is the time to start it. When it opens, it will display an ordinary blank document, and that s also an ideal way to start. Now follow these steps to create your envelope: 1. The first step varies according to which version of Word you use: If you use Word 2007, choose the Mailings tab on the Ribbon and click the Envelopes button. Click Envelopes 40

Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word P 730 / 5 If you use Word 2003 or Word 2002/XP, open the Tools menu, move the mouse to Letters and Mailings and click Envelopes and Labels. If you use Word 2000 or 97, choose Tools > Envelopes and Labels. 2. In the dialog that appears, select the Envelopes tab. Choose Envelopes 3. The dialog you re using, pictured in the next screenshot, is laid out a little differently in the various versions of Microsoft Word, but you will find all the options we ll be using somewhere in the dialog. 4. Now click in the box labelled Delivery address and type the name and address of the letter s recipient. Don t worry at this stage if the text looks rather large or has an unusual font we ll deal with that a little later. If you d like to follow my trick of creating and saving an envelope to use quickly and easily in future, and you don t actually need an envelope right now, you can type any address in the Delivery address box (or make something up that looks like an address). 41

P 730 / 6 Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word Type the address of the recipient into this box You can add a return address 5. The next step is optional. In America and Europe it s usual to include your own name and address in the top left corner of the envelope something that has never quite caught on here in Britain, where we tend to put the return address on the back. However, printing on the back of an envelope as well adds a new layer of complexity to something we d like to keep simple! If you d like to include your own details in the top left corner, click in the Return address box and type them there. If you d prefer not to, tick the checkbox labelled Omit just above. Type your own name and address into this box...... or tick the Omit option 42

Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word P 730 / 7 6. Now we need to fine-tune the settings for our envelope, so click the Options button. 7. The dialog that appears contains two tabs labelled Envelope Options and Printing Options. Select the Envelope Options tab and we ll start with the settings found there. 8. First, make sure Word knows which size of envelope you re printing: open the drop-down list labelled Envelope size and select the correct envelope type. Choose the correct envelope size from this list 9. A little further down you ll see two buttons labelled Font. The first of these sets the font for the delivery address, the second for the return address in the top left corner (if you ve chosen to use this option). To specify the font and text size used for these addresses, click the appropriate Font button, choose the font settings you want to use and then click OK. Choose the fonts used for both addresses It s simplest to use the same font for both addresses, and it s generally best to pick a fairly plain and easily-readable font such as Tahoma, Verdana or Arial. A size of 10 or 11 is suitable for the delivery address. The return address should be smaller, around 7 or 8. (Although you won t see 7 in the list of text sizes, you can delete the figure shown in the box immediately below Size and type 7 there.) Rather than being too artistic with your envelope, I d suggest choosing Regular for the font style, leaving the colour as Automatic and not using any of the underlining or effects options! 43

P 730 / 8 Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word 10. After choosing the envelope size and fonts from the Envelope Options tab, switch to the Printing Options tab. 11. On this tab, pictured in the next screenshot, you tell Word which way round and which way up envelopes are inserted into your printer. Microsoft Word usually knows this already and selects the correct settings, but if the settings are obviously wrong, click the picture that matches the way envelopes are fed, and choose Face up or Face down as appropriate. Use these options to tell Word how envelopes feed into your printer 12. Click OK in the Envelope Options dialog to return to the main Envelopes and Labels dialog we were using earlier. 44

Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word P 730 / 9 13. That s it your envelope has been set up! We haven t quite finished, though, because you now have a choice. You can either print your envelope straight away, or add a new envelope page to your document for printing later: If you choose to print your envelope straight away, this dialog will close and its settings will be forgotten. To print another envelope, you d follow all the previous steps again. The other drawback to this option is that you don t get any chance to choose printer settings first: if your printer is currently set to print in draft mode, for instance, that s the way your envelope will be printed. If you re happy to go ahead and print the envelope despite these drawbacks, click the Print button. The second option is the one I recommend, because it gives you the opportunity to save a special envelope document as I mentioned earlier, making all your future envelope printing much quicker and easier. To use this option, click the Add to Document button. From this point onwards, I m going to assume you ve chosen the second option and clicked Add to Document. (If you ve gone for the first option, you ve finished and your envelope should already be emerging from your printer.) 14. After clicking Add to Document, you may see the dialog pictured in the next screenshot. You ll only see this if you chose to include your return address in the top left corner of the envelope: Word is offering to save this and insert it for you automatically next time you use the dialog. It s generally worth choosing Yes, although it doesn t matter too much: if you decide you like my option of saving a Choose how and when to print the envelope This option is best 45

P 730 / 10 Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word ready-to-use envelope document, you ll rarely if ever use this dialog again. 15. Now you re returned to the main Microsoft Word window which should look similar to the next screenshot. Above the usual blank document (or the letter you d written), you ll see a new, envelope-shaped page containing the address details you entered. Microsoft Word adds a special envelope page at the beginning of your document If you regret choosing this option, it s easily reversed. Just press Ctrl+Z (the keyboard shortcut for Undo) and Word will remove the envelope page it just added. 46

Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word P 730 / 11 Check Your Envelope Layout with a Test Print A little later I ll show you how to save this result for easy use in future, but before you do that, you need to make sure the result is laid out properly. The only way to do that is to sacrifice an envelope by printing the page, but the ease with which you ll be able to print envelopes in future should make this worthwhile. First, if you can see any obvious flaws in the layout (such as the wrong font or text size), you can change those: just select the text as you would in an ordinary Word page and use the normal font options. When you re ready to print, and you ve inserted an envelope the correct way into your printer, follow these steps to print it: 1. Either press Ctrl+P or choose the appropriate option for your version of Word: In Word 2007, click the Office button, move down to Print and then move the mouse into the right section and click the Print option. In other versions of Word, open the File menu and click Print. Although you can probably see a little Print button on one of Word s toolbars, it s important not to click that. It would cause the whole document to be printed, whereas the step above allows us to print just the first page containing the envelope. 2. In the Print dialog that appears, find the section headed Page range, click in the box beside Pages and type the number 1 to specify that you only want to print page one. You can adjust fonts and text sizes 47

P 730 / 12 Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word Click in this box and type 1 3. If you want to adjust your printer s settings to choose the print quality and so on, click the Properties button and select the required settings followed by OK. Problems with the printed result? 4. Finally, click OK in the Print dialog to print your envelope. Hopefully your printed envelope has come out just as you wanted, but things don t always go according to plan. If the address has been printed on the back of the envelope rather than the front, or upside down, you just need to remember to insert envelopes the other way round (or up) in future. If the address has been printed too far to the left or right, now is the time to adjust it. Click somewhere in the address on your envelope page and you ll see a shaded or dotted box appear around it, as pictured in the next screenshot. Move the mouse on to this shaded or dotted border (but avoid the eight little blobs in its corners and along its edges) and then press the left mouse button and drag a little way in the 48

Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word P 730 / 13 required direction. As you drag the mouse, the position of the box will follow it. You can drag the address box around by its border You may like to run another test print to check this new position by following the steps on page 10 again. Rather than waste a second envelope, pop the same one back in again. The result will be rather messy, but you should be able to gauge whether the new position is now correct. Save Your Envelope Document for Easy Use in the Future Congratulations that s the difficult part over! You now have an envelope document that s guaranteed to be laid out correctly when you print it. In a moment we ll save this document for quick and easy future use, but first here s the quick trick I mentioned earlier. Below the envelope page in Word, there s an ordinary A4 page. We never want to print this page, but we can t actually remove it. However, we can put it to good use! Delete any text it contains, and then type a sentence or two to remind you how envelopes have to be inserted into your printer. Every time you use this document to print an envelope in future, you ll see this useful reminder and you won t have to go hunting for your printer s manual. Make use of the ordinary page below the envelope! 49

P 730 / 14 Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word Type a note on this page to remind yourself how to insert envelopes Save the envelope document Now you re ready to save this document: In Word 2007, click the Office button, move the mouse down to Save As and then click Word Document. In other versions of Word, choose File > Save As. In the dialog that appears, you choose where to save this document and what name to give it. For simplicity, it s best to save it into your Documents or My Documents folder. For the name, choose Envelope (or something equally obvious) so that you ll know which document to open next time you want to print an envelope. How To Use Your Envelope Document to Print Envelopes Quickly After following the preceding pages of this article, you ll remember that we followed 13 steps and navigated several dialogs before we reached the point at which we were ready to actually print an envelope. You could do the same every time, but the envelope document we saved gives us a much easier and quicker 50

Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word P 730 / 15 method. Whenever you want to print an envelope, follow these steps: 1. In Office 2007, click the Office button and choose Open. In other versions of Word choose File > Open. 2. In the Open dialog that appears, navigate to the folder in which you saved your Envelope document, select it and click Open. 3. Your envelope document will open in Word, looking just the way you last saw it. All you need to do is to change the delivery address and it will be ready to print. 4. Move the mouse somewhere to the right of the last line, press the left button and drag diagonally up to the beginning of the first line, which selects the entire address. 5. Now simply type the new name and address you need for this envelope. Your typing will automatically replace the old address, and will use the same font and size. Type the new delivery address Select the original address and type the new address to replace it 51

P 730 / 16 Printing Envelopes in Microsoft Word 6. Next, insert an envelope the correct way into your printer. (If you followed the earlier tip, the note on the page below the address will remind you how to do this.) There s no need to save your changes 7. Now, as we did on page 11, open Microsoft Word s Print dialog by choosing Office button > Print > Print in Office 2007, or File > Print in other versions of Word. 8. As we did earlier, click in the box beside the word Pages and type the number 1 to specify that you only want to print page one. 9. Finally, click OK in the Print dialog to print the envelope. If you want to print another envelope, you can go back to step 4 and type another address. Otherwise, simply close Microsoft Word. It will ask whether you want to save the changes to this document, but there s no need to do that: your envelope document is still safely stored on your computer for next time, so saving the changes would only change the address stored in the document, which isn t necessary. 52