Panorama can print any kind of label. It includes templates for common types of labels, but you can customize if there is no template available.
To illustrate creating a label we’ll use a donor database which contains addresses for each donor:
To create a new label choose New Form from the View menu. Hold down the Control key as you use the menu, to tell Panorama to open the new form in a separate window.
The new form dialog appears. Type in the name of the form (in this case Mailing Labels) and press the QuickLabel button.
The next dialog is for specifying the label dimensions. To use standard 3-up Avery 5160 labels (the most common type) so simply pick Avery 5160 from the pop-up menu, then press OK. If you want to use a custom label size simply enter the label dimensions and margin.
The next step is to lay out the text that goes on each label. Start by double clicking on first (in the left column), then press the Space key. Next double click on last and press the Return key. Continue with double clicking and pressing the Return, Comma and Space keys until the label is finished.
When done I press the OK button. Here is the layout for the mailing labels. Panorama has automatically set up the top margin, left margin and body of the labels. I can use the graphic tools to adjust any of the dimensions (see Forms), but in this case the automatic setup is perfect.
Click the T-Square tool to switch from graphic layout mode to data mode. This shows a preview of what an actual label will look like.
To actually print the labels simply choose Print from the File menu. To illustrate this I’ve printed the labels to a PDF file:
Once the labels are set up you can re-use them at any time. Simply choose the label form from the View menu, make sure that the most recent data is downloaded from your Rails database, and choose the Print command.
Learn More about Labels
To learn more about labels see Chapter 22 of Panorama Essentials or the Panorama Handbook.