Pima County Department of Transportation

Geographic Information Services Division

MapGuide Tutorial: Using Microsoft Word 97 or 2000 to Print Labels

You can use Microsoft Word to make and print labels from addresses generated by Autodesk MapGuide in comma delimited format.

Prior to beginning the label creation and printing instructions below you should have already generated a comma delimited address report.

Making and Printing Labels

Getting Started

1. Start Word with a blank document.
2. Select Tools, Mail Merge... and see the three-step Mail Merge Helper dialog displayed.

   Mail Merge Helper step 1

3. Click the Create button and select Mailing Labels...
4. Select Active Window as the document.

   Mail Merge Helper step 2

5. Click the Get Data button and select Open Data Source...
6. Under Files of Type, select "Text Files...".
7. Find and select the .txt file you saved. Then, click Open.
8. A dialog box appears. Click Set Up Main Document.
9. Choose the appropriate options in the Label Options dialog, especially the Product number that defines the label size and layout. Then, click OK.
10. The Create Labels dialog box appears.

    Now decide whether to generate labels with the owner's mailing address or the situs address. The situs address is the actual address of the property which may not be the same as the owner's mailing address. (The owner could even be in another state.) Usually, you want to use the owner's mailing address.

    Situs addresses are generally inappropriate for mailing labels. Not all situs addresses can accept mail and they would reach the occupant, not necessarily the owner. See About situs addresses for more.

    Choose the appropriate fields (mailing or situs) for the labels using one of these two steps depending on the particular comma-delimited file you are using:

    • For owner's mailing address, use the Insert Merge Field button to place the fields you want on the label and design their layout. For owner's mailing address these would be Parcel (optional), Mail1, Mail2, Mail3, Mail4, Mail5, and Zip9. After clicking on Insert Merge Field, click on the first desired label field and proceed with the remaining needed fields in the same manner. Then move the cursor between each field and press Enter to put the fields on separate lines.

      For owner mailing address, use these fields in an order something like this:

      «Parcel»
      «Mail1»
      «Mail2»
      «Mail3»
      «Mail4»
      «Mail5» «Zip9»

      and click OK when done.

    • For situs addresses, use the Insert Merge Field button to place the fields you want on the label and design their layout. For situs addresses these would be Parcel (optional), StreetNo, Streetdir, StreetName, zipcity and zipcode. Then format the fields by moving the cursor between each field and pressing Enter or adding a space so it is formatted like the example below. You can also add ", AZ" just by typing it in. Use something like this:
      «Parcel»
      «StreetNo» «StreetDir» «StreetName»
      «zipity», AZ «zipcode»

      and click OK when done.

11. If you expect to do similar labels in the future, then save the document at this point. The next time you want to make labels, you can open the document you saved and proceed with Mail Merge Helper step 3.

    Mail Merge Helper step 3

12. Click the Merge... button.
13. In the dialog box that appears, leave all defaults, including "Merge to" as New document.
14. Click Merge.

    Checking and Printing Your Labels

15. Check your displayed results as displayed and perhaps with File, Print Preview.
16. If everything looked good, use File, Print... to print the labels on your printer.