How the live preview in Labels by Zaweba saves paper
The live preview in Labels by Zaweba shows every sheet, envelope or roll label as it will print, with used labels greyed out, from the same layout as the PDF.
Wasted label sheets are the main cost of getting a label job wrong. The live preview in Labels by Zaweba is there to stop that. It shows every sheet, envelope or roll label exactly as it will print, including the labels you have already used, greyed out where the start position says they are.
What makes it trustworthy is how it is built. The same layout feeds the preview, the PDF export and the printer. The preview is not an approximate picture drawn separately; it is the very layout that will be sent to paper. What you see is what is produced.
What the preview shows
For label sheets, you see each sheet in turn with each label filled in: one label per contact when you are printing a group, the selected contacts, everyone or rows from a CSV file, or the same label repeated when you are printing one label across a whole sheet. Labels before the start position appear greyed out, so you can check that printing will begin on the first free label of a part-used sheet.
For envelopes, you see each DL, C5 or C4 envelope with the delivery address lower right and your return address top left if you have chosen one.
For roll and thermal labels, you see one label per page, because that is how they print: each label is its own page at its own size, fed one at a time.
Using it to set the start position
The preview is also a control. Instead of typing the number of the first free label, you can click that label in the preview to set the start position. The used labels grey out straight away, and the merge reflows from there. On a sheet with 65 small labels, clicking is much easier than counting.
What to look for before printing
Scroll through every sheet, not just the first. Problems tend to show up in the unusual contacts: a company name that runs long, an overseas address with more lines than most, or a contact with no postcode. Merge fields drop blank lines and lines whose fields are all empty, so short addresses should close up neatly. If a label looks crowded, text can shrink to fit, down to 5 pt, and the preview shows the result.
Count the sheets. Because the preview shows every one, you know how many the job will use, which is handy before you discover you only have one sheet left in the packet.
Look at the edges. If anything sits very close to the edge of a label, a small printer drift could push it off. Move it in a little on the designer tab and the preview updates.
How it fits with PDF and printing
Because the preview, PDF and printer share one layout, a PDF export looks exactly like the preview. That makes a PDF with label outlines the natural next step if you want a paper test: print it on plain paper, hold it against a label sheet and see whether everything lines up.
What the preview can't know is how your particular printer feeds paper. Printing goes through the normal Windows print dialog at actual size, and some printers shift the page slightly. That is what Print > Calibrate a printer is for. It saves an offset for that printer and applies it to everything printed on it, so the paper ends up matching the preview.
A sensible routine
Design, then glance at the preview. Set the start position by clicking. Scroll through every sheet. For a big or important job, print one test sheet on plain paper first. Then load the label sheets and print.
It takes a minute, and it is the minute that saves the sheets.
